


ooh la, love

by kattyshack



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Family, Fluff, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Matchmaking, Mutual Pining, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 19:31:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11088408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattyshack/pseuds/kattyshack
Summary: Following Ned and Catelyn Stark’s untimely passing, their eldest daughter steps in to take custody of her five-year-old brother. On the surface, Sansa is taking the new topsy-turvy nature of her life in her usual graceful stride. She grieves privately and thoroughly, and afterwards won’t admit that while raising Rickon is precisely where she wants to be, it’s lonely work nonetheless.That is, until she meets his playschool teacher: Sweet, caring, I’m-here-for-you, call-me-anytime Jon Snow, who just happens to see right through her—and Sansa can’t help but let him look.(work and chapter titles from “i would do anything for you,” by foster the people)





	1. every day is a battle i face

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kingsnow (bravegentlestrong)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravegentlestrong/gifts).



> a/n: first of all, dedicated to lizzie—my bro, my muse, my jonsa soundtrack coordinator—because it was her prompt in the first place, and she very generously let me run with it (and thank GOD, too, because i’m in love with it)
> 
> second: i’m really adding to my wips here, but if it makes anyone feel better every multichapter i’ve got going is entirely plotted out, i just need to write the chapters in full. so brace yourselves—updates are coming. in the meantime, here’s another:

A car crash.

It’s so cliché that it’s hardly believable, Sansa muses dully on the days when the shock revisits her so profoundly that she can do nothing but muse dully for the better part of an hour. While she’d been sulking in her downtown flat, nursing her second glass of wine after another argument with her now ex-boyfriend, her parents’ car had skidded off the road, and that was all she wrote. Tragic. Simple. End of. 

It hadn’t even been icy. Sansa could rage at the unfairness of it all. It had been in the middle of summer, at the height of a thunderstorm, which was treacherous weather in its own right, and yet Sansa can’t think of anything more unjust. For all their brilliance, kindness, and generosity, Ned and Catelyn Stark’s lives had been snuffed out on the end of a tragic accident, and Sansa’s had been thrust into a complete tailspin.

It’s not just the grief. However painful, blinding, unyielding it is, Sansa can shed it in tears whenever she likes, whenever she needs. She can take her time, nurse this pain at her own pace, and somehow, somewhere down the line, she can start the second part of her life. The part where her parents—her dear, darling, devoted parents—are not a constant presence in her life, but instead just a memory. She can take her grief in all its intensity and chip away at it until it’s something she can live with.

Or rather, she could… if it weren’t for Rickon.

Five years prior, Ned and Catelyn had nearly settled into the beginnings of their empty nest years when a regular check-up at the doctor’s turned into a pregnancy announcement. With one son married and a father himself now, one daughter living on her own in the city, and their two youngest in the throes of university life, Rickon’s conception had been a surprise indeed.

“I thought Mum was _menopausal_ ,” Arya had said, aghast at the news.

“So did she,” Sansa agreed. “Let this be a lesson in the power of unprotected sex, I suppose.”

Arya wrinkled her nose. “Oh, gross.”

Their advanced age notwithstanding, Ned and Cat had greeted the arrival of their youngest child with as much pomp and circumstance as any other. They had no qualms with delaying their transition to the empty nest for another eighteen years, as they hadn’t quite known what to do with themselves in the first place. Ned had always joked he’d rather go straight from fatherhood to his grave, anyway, and a pox on the twenty years of golf he’d have to play in-between.

 _Well, Dad, you got your wish_ , Sansa thinks at her parents’ funeral, and cries all the more for it.

But she can’t cry forever. Oh, she would, she’d drown in this grief if anyone had let her; but Rickon holds her hand so tightly as they bid farewell to their parents on this hazy July afternoon, and Sansa swears then and there that she’ll be brave for him. She squeezes his little hand right back. She’ll be brave for _them_.

The night of the funeral, the Stark children congregate in the sitting room of Ned and Cat’s little ranch house. They’d sold their first home once Bran had been packed away to school—“We don’t need five bedrooms between the two of us”—so the place isn’t particularly home to any of them but Rickon. But Ned’s office is still tinged with cigar smoke he thought his wife couldn’t figure out, and the pillows smell of Catelyn’s favorite perfume, forever embedded in the fabric where she would so often lay her head for afternoon naps. The house holds no childhood memories for Sansa, but it holds her parents so near and dear that it’s as though she’s always lived here.

Rickon snoozes in Ned’s favorite armchair while the rest of them look on. Robb takes a generous sip of brandy and says, “I talked to Luwin. He says it’s up to us who takes Rickon. Mum and Dad didn’t want to saddle any of one of us with the responsibility, I s’pose. Brynden said he’d take him, even.”

“Bless his heart, but Uncle Brynden’s well into his eighties.” Sansa shakes her head at Robb and nods at Arya, who’s tipping Bailey’s into her proffered cup of coffee. “He can’t take on a five-year-old. It’s unlikely he’d be able to keep Rickon forever, either. Say he falls into ill health or dies, we’ll just have to move Rickon again. We can’t shuffle him about like that. He needs stability.”

“Edmure won’t do, either,” Bran says. In a show of uncharacteristic disrespect, he rolls his eyes at the mere thought. “He can hardly handle his own kid.”

“He didn’t offer, anyway,” Arya points out. She takes a straight shot of liquer and wipes the excess from her mouth. “Did you see the look on his face? He nearly pissed himself when you were talking to Luwin.”

She jerks her chin at Robb, who says, “Quit eavesdropping, twerp.”

“Hell, I’m just saying, even Bran and I said we’d do it—”

“And we’re not dumping Rickon at your flat in the middle of party city,” Sansa interrupts her sister with a good-natured pat on the head. “You and Bran are absolutely out of the question and you know it. You can drink and ace your exams with the best of them, but it’s no place for a toddler.”

Robb rubs a tired hand down his face but manages a grin. “It would make for a good screenplay, though, wouldn’t it?”

“Idiot,” Sansa, Arya, and Bran chorus at once, and they share a laugh. It’s an aching, broken, wonderful piece of normalcy, and Rickon stirs in his sleep but does not wake.

“I’ll take him,” Robb says, voice quiet in the aftermath of their moment of mirth. His jaw is set, but his eyes are tender on his baby brother. “Jeyne and I’ve already discussed it. The boys love him. We’ve handled two rowdy sons so far—what’s a third, right?”

He shakes his head, and the softest of smiles crosses his mouth. “Of course we’ll take him home.”

 _Home._ The word strikes a chord in Sansa, and it reverberates in her bones, her mind, her heart. She looks at her siblings: Robb, his face shadowed and tie undone; Robb, who laughs wildly and recklessly and acts so brashly sometimes that Sansa is awed that he’s still alive. Bran, purple shadows painted beneath eyes that know more than any of them can imagine and can never know how; Bran, who’s only ever wanted the best for them all, and has always given more than he takes. And Arya, dolled up in a suit smarter than any of her brothers’, crisp and clean save for the bloodstain on her collar, thanks to the stress nosebleed she’d endured that morning; Arya, who feels so fiercely that it breaks Sansa’s heart to see her crumble.

Home, where they are now, in a place none of them had grown up and yet here they are, grouped together as though they’d never been apart. It’s easy for them—for Robb, Sansa, Arya, and Bran—to find home anywhere, so long as it’s with each other, because they’d never been without. But Rickon…

Sansa turns her gaze on Rickon, curled up in their father’s chair with his thumb in his mouth. He should have grown out of the habit by now, she thinks. But hadn’t they all turned to old habits to comfort themselves today? She takes another bracing swig of spiked coffee and thinks that, yes, they’d all found some semblance of home where they could make it. She doesn’t know if it’s survival instinct or what, but whatever it is, Rickon shouldn’t have to rely on himself to find it. It’s too much and he’s too young, and Sansa can’t bear to uproot him from the only home he’s ever known, not after his life has already changed more than any boy’s should.

“I’ll take him,” she says. It’s sudden but resolute, and Robb refuses at once.

“Sansa, no.” He sets his brandy aside and leans forward, elbows on his knees. “I can’t ask you to do that, to pack up your life like that—”

“And we can’t do that to Rickon, either.” Sansa shakes her head again. “He’s already lost Mum and Dad and he hardly knows why. You can’t take him halfway ‘cross the country on top of it. My lease is up, anyway, I don’t need to stay in the city. I already work from home, so really I’ve got nothing keeping me downtown.”

“What about Harry?” Bran wants to know.

“Fuck Harry,” Arya says before Sansa can do so herself. The sisters catch one another’s eye, and Arya nods her approval. “You could do it, San. I know you can. You’ve always been able to handle whatever you’ve got to. If this is what you want...”

Now Arya looks uncertain. Her gaze bores into Sansa’s, who finds herself looking away so that Arya won’t be able to dig too deeply. Of course this is what Sansa wants—it’s what she has to do, and Sansa has always accepted what she has to do. No matter what it is or how it’s come about or why, she’s shouldered her responsibilities and carried them as far as she must. She never questions or laments them, or pities herself for having to take them on. It simply _is_.

And how could she question or despair now, when Rickon had held her hand so tightly? He needs her, and he needs this little ranch house and all the remembrances of their parents that it holds.

“It’s what I want,” she assures Arya, and Robb, and Bran. She hugs her coffee mug to her chest. “It’s the right thing, I think. It’s what he needs.”

Her eyes are all for Rickon again—this little boy with the auburn curls and dirt forever under his fingernails, who sleeps so soundly in his daddy’s leather chair, and maybe doesn’t understand why his daddy will never sit there again. She can’t take him from the only home he’s ever known, not when his life has already been turned upside-down in the wake of a tragedy none of them could have helped. He should stay, Sansa thinks, because this home is what he needs now, more than ever.

She sips from her mug again and wonders, _Maybe it’s what I need, too_.

* * *

The month that follows is more or less uneventful. Robb and his wife return home with the insistence that Sansa call if she needs anything, absolutely anything, but they know that she won’t. Bran and Arya head back to school with promises to return on any and all breaks, and Sansa wipes the worry from their brows with kisses and a smile that’s nearly genuine enough to fool them both. Rickon has settled back into a routine, and there are only some days when he asks when Mum and Dad are coming home; they are becoming fewer and farther between, and Sansa thinks that may be the best she can hope for.

Sansa, meanwhile, operates on something like autopilot. It’s not the healthiest of coping mechanisms, but all she wants is to get through every day with a little more hope than the one before. She does not occupy herself wholly with Rickon or keep them isolated in their grief and healing—she takes him on playdates, chats with her best friend via text and phone and Skype, avoids her ex-boyfriend Harry’s attempts at contact, and buries herself in the work she’d neglected in the wake of her parents’ passing.

She fills her time and does so wisely; theoretically, she should be falling into bed at the end of each day with nary a thought in her head. But after Rickon’s been fed and washed and put to sleep, after she’s closed her video chat with Margaery, the house is quiet but for the breeze through the open windows, and Sansa’s mind is louder than it’s ever been. There are no words to the noise, no concrete thoughts, nothing for Sansa to pick apart and put back together to gain some better understanding of herself.

There is just noise, and nothing to make sense of it.

“I think you’re lonely,” Brienne tells her on the first of September.

Sansa snorts but does not humor her. Truthfully, she’s surprised that Brienne decides to say anything to her about her mental state at all. Sansa has known the woman all her life, after all, and she’s never been the sort to offer such unsolicited observations.

Brienne Tarth is a shrewd but kind woman whose loyalty knows no bounds. She had been Catelyn’s closest confidante, steadfast and quiet and forever present; she had been something like a second mother to the Stark children, a protective shadow should they ever need her. She had even hired Sansa onto her team at Baratheon Media, where Sansa operates their social sites and writes the occasional copy on what it’s like to be a “modern woman” (whatever that means, but Sansa has found a thousand ways to wing it since she was hired on some four-odd years ago).

Having Brienne for a friend and boss has its perks, one of which is that Sansa can work from anywhere and Brienne will gladly come to her. Since she’d returned to the grind a few weeks after the funeral, Sansa had set up shop in Ned’s old office. Despite the stale scent of smoke that had tainted the furniture, she finds comfort in the room’s earthy tones and the familiarity of her father’s preferred mahogany and leather. Brienne, for her part, can work just about anywhere, and so the women found their working rhythm in the ranch house and stuck to it.

“I’m not  _lonely_ ,” she says when she can stand Brienne’s silence no longer. How dare the woman drop such a bomb on her and then decline to say more of it? “I’ve got you, haven’t I?”

“A woman twice your age with the power to fire you at the drop of a hat?” Brienne types a whirlwind across her laptop’s keyboard, no doubt blocking some disgruntled reader from spamming one of their sites further. “I wouldn’t call that companionship.”

Sansa can’t argue that point, so she tries another. “Well it’s not as though I have time for a smashing social life—”

“You’ve  _always_ had time for a smashing social life.” 

Again, Brienne makes something of a bulletproof point. Sansa had always been a social butterfly, flitting from this event to the next, charming the masses, making friends wherever she went. She had thrived on it—the newness, the thrill, the fun. It’s why she’d moved to the city in the first place; it was bursting with people and opportunities, and Sansa had fallen in love with the glitz and glamor of it all.

But it couldn’t last forever—she’d known it then and she knows it even better now. She couldn’t have kept on that way, family tragedy or no.  

“That was before. I can’t do that now, not with Rickon to think of.” Sansa pretends to proofread an article that doesn’t need it, then gives up and leans back in her chair, better to observe Brienne observing her. “Besides, I’m nearly twenty-seven. I think I’ve grown out of the weekly pub crawl, don’t you?”

“You’re never too old for the weekly pub crawl.”

At that, Sansa has to laugh. Brienne’s the most stoic, serious person she’s ever met and here she is, all but encouraging Sansa to embark upon a life of debauchery, or at the very least a weekend of it.

Before she can ask “Who are you and what have you done with my boss?” though, the novelty cuckoo clock on the desk chimes three and Sansa swears under her breath.

“Shit.” She clicks her laptop shut and pushes out of her seat. “I’ve got to get Rickon from school.”

“I thought Osha stayed on?” Brienne asks, referring to the nanny Ned and Cat had hired for the occasions when their plentiful charity work would keep them from Rickon.

“She did.” Sansa scrambles around the desk for her discarded shoes. “She’s been picking him up for the past two weeks, but I really don’t want to ask too much of her. She’s got school herself now, and it’s not as though I’m doing anything all day—”

“I’ll be sure to let Renly know you think so.”

“Ha!” Sansa readjusts her tousled topknot to little avail, but she hardly has time to check herself in the mirror so she crosses her fingers that it’s not the absolute bird’s nest she suspects it is. “ _Don’t_ tell him I said that. Rickon’s school is just ‘round the corner.”  _More or less._ “I’ll be back in twenty, tops.”

Brienne waves her off, not about to reprimand her for her parental duties. Another perk of having the woman for a boss, Sansa thinks, but doesn’t push her luck by pointing it out. Not that Brienne would, but all the same Sansa doesn’t want her to think she’s taking advantage of their personal relationship to pad their professional one.  

And to be fair, Rickon’s school really is just a short drive away. Even with the parents milling around the parking lot, Sansa has little trouble securing a spot and making it into the building. She waves at the parents she knows and smiles politely at those she doesn’t, for she never had forgotten her courtesies.

As Osha had taken on the role of Rickon’s chauffeur, Sansa had yet to visit his classroom, but her brother had talked of little else but his teacher for the past fortnight.

“Mr. _Snow_ , Sansa,” Rickon had said when she’d teased him by continuing to call his teacher Mr. Rain, Mr. Sunshine, and Mr. Tornado Warning, respectively. “He taught me last year, too, but now Mr. Mummin—”

“Mr. Mormont,” Sansa had corrected him, causing Rickon to sigh with the exasperation only a five-year-old can muster.

“How come you know his name but you can’t remember Mr. Snow?” he’d wanted to know, but gave her no time to answer as he continued. “Mr. Mummin retired, Mr. Snow said so, so now Mr. Snow teaches playschool. I’m glad Mr. Mummin retired. He had a mean face. Mr. Snow has a nice face, though.”

“Does he now?”

“Yes,” Rickon had declared with finality. He began to busy himself with his crayons, which proved to be more interesting for the time being. “But I think I’m done talking about it now.”

Taking care to call him by the correct name, it only takes a couple of well-placed questions for Sansa to find Mr. Snow’s classroom at the end of the hall. Rickon is standing by the door with a circle of fellow five-year-olds, all of them laughing hysterically over something that the adults likely wouldn’t understand. Sansa had certainly never understood any of her brother’s jokes, but she’d never been able to help laughing along with him regardless. His giggle is infectious, and the dimple in his cheek could make sense out of the most absurd knock-knock gag.

“Sansa!” Rickon squeals when he sees her. “Sansa, knock knock!”

“Who’s there?”

“Apple!”

“Apple who?”

“No, it’s a banana!” Rickon reveals (only he pronounces it “baneenee”), much to the delight of his companions, who practically shriek in their shared glee over the joke.

Once he’s calmed down, Rickon grabs Sansa’s hand and drags her into the classroom. “Okay, Sansa, come meet Mr. Snow.”

 _Oh, god._ Sansa’s free hand flies to her hair in a show of self-consciousness. The last thing she wants is for Rickon’s teacher to think she’s some sort of negligent shut-in. After all, it had taken her two weeks to bother picking her brother up from school, and when she finally does it’s in yesterday’s sundress and three days’ worth of dry shampoo. But then, if this one’s anything like Mr. Mormont—who had been around so long that nothing seemed to faze him—he probably won’t notice.

The thought calms Sansa for approximately five seconds, which is as long as it takes for Rickon to locate his target in the throng of students and parents, and then—

_Well fuck me sideways._

Mr. Snow is decidedly _not_ anything like Mr. Mormont. He’s young, for one thing; he can’t be more than a year or two older than Sansa. Where Mormont had lived in chunky sweaters and bulky cargo pants, Mr. Snow quite clearly knows how to dress himself not only professionally, but flatteringly, too. Sansa’s always been a sucker for the button-down and vest combo, and— _Jesus_ —the wire frames and the curly hair? Just. Wow.  _What the—oh my god, what the fuck, what the FUCK—_

Surely the universe must be testing her, or punishing her for not washing her hair regularly like any self-respecting human being. Until now, Sansa had thought herself blessed with an inordinate amount of self-respect and confidence to boot, but she throws dignity to the wind and digs her heels into the industrial carpet to stop Rickon from dragging her any closer to the unequivocal _man of her dreams_ when she hadn’t even bothered to put on deodorant at any point during the day.

Rickon, however, will not be deterred, and Sansa can’t explain her sudden immobility to him in terms he could possibly understand. Indeed, her love life will be as incomprehensible to him as his “No, it’s a baneenee!” had been to her. But, then again, she’s just as sure that no one’s life has ever been ruined by an unprepared meeting with a banana, either, but—

_WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT?_

Sansa doesn’t have time to examine her own panic before Rickon insists on exacerbating it. In an unprecedented show of strength, he shoves her forward with a “Mr. Snow! This is my sister!”

She manages to catch herself before she steps on the man’s toes, but not before she catches a whiff of his very appealing cologne. Sansa doesn’t even _like_ cologne, not since every boyfriend she’s ever had has evidently insisted on bathing in it, but Mr. Snow seems to have gotten the memo that it’s not meant to replace proper hygiene. But no—of course the first man she’s been in close proximity with since the Harry disaster smells _this good_ when Sansa herself couldn’t even brush out her hair that morning.

“Oh—hello.” The corners of Mr. Snow’s eyes crinkle when he smiles, and Sansa wishes that the floor would open up and swallow her already, for fuck’s sake. “Sansa? Rickon’s told me all about you.”

 _If that_ ’s true _, Rickon is so grounded_ , Sansa vows, but thankfully what she says aloud is, “Has he? Well that’s only fair, seeing as all he’s done at home is talk about you. ‘Mr. Snow’ this and that, you know.”

Rickon mutters a rather impatient  _“Sansa…”_ but otherwise lets the embarrassment slide off his shoulders.

“Oh, it’s Jon,” Mr. Snow says. “If you don’t mind, that is. Not that you’re—well, what I mean to say is, I get a lot of the ‘Mr. Snow’ business from mothers and it’s a bit…” He pauses to rub the back of his neck. “Well it’s a bit odd, the way that they say it, so I’ve gone off it. Does that—that doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

He’s flustered, and Sansa would thank every god who’s ever existed in some form or another for it if she didn’t feel just the same. Unless she’s very much mistaken, though, he doesn’t appear to notice that she’s scrambling just as much as he is, so perhaps she can pull off her whole “cool and collected” vibe with minimal interference.

“Do they say it like—” Sansa makes a vague gesture with her hand— “ _you know_? Like it’s a—”

“Kink?” Jon supplies, and immediately regrets it. 

Rickon looks between the pair of them, both with wide eyes, red faces, and slack jaws, and asks, “What’s a kink?”

“Oh my god—” Jon stutters while Sansa claps a hand over her brother’s mouth to keep him from asking that question again— “oh, Sansa, I’m so sorry—”

“That’s alright.” She laughs, something of a strangled sound, but it really would have been funny if the word _kink_ coming from Mr. Jon Snow hadn’t made her tingle in a very inconvenient place. “He’s got internet access, I bet he already knows what it means, and—well, now that I think of it, I’m going to go home and put the child lock on absolutely everything.”

The corners of Jon’s eyes still crinkle, no matter how sheepish his grin, and rather than thank the gods Sansa would damn them all to hell for it. “I am— _so sorry_ —”

Sansa gestures with her hand again, this time to brush aside his apologies. “Please, don’t mention it. Rickon—” she grips his shoulders and adopts her serious face— “if you never say that word again, I’ll give you five Mars Bars.”

Rickon throws his arms up in celebration, his mouth open in a silent cry of adulation until he cackles and begins a chant of _Mars_ _Bars, Mars Bars, MARS BARS!_

“See?” Sansa relinquishes her hold and allows her brother to revel in his victory. She smiles at Jon, determined to finish this conversation with as much dazzle and dignity as she can. “He’s easy.”

“And I’m mortified,” Jon admits, as though he needs to say it aloud when the flush of his way-too-unfairly-fecking handsome face hadn’t been indication enough. “Do you think we could try this again tomorrow? Perhaps without me saying anything inappropriate? I don’t want you to pull Rickon out of my class just because I’ve made a proper idiot of myself.”

Sansa wants to tell him again not to worry about it, and of course she won’t pull Rickon out of his class for a slip of the tongue. But frankly she doesn’t trust herself to say anything about his tongue, so instead she lets loose another laugh—this one far more steady than the last—and says, “Yeah, Jon, we can try again tomorrow.”

It might mean ducking out on work for half an hour a day, but with just one more of Jon’s smiles, Sansa decides it’s worth it to relieve Osha of her chauffeur duties. Because god help her, but Rickon had been right about one thing, without question:

Mr. Snow really _does_ have the nicest face she’s ever seen.


	2. i’ll be a listening ear to everything you say

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: so this chapter very much mirrors the first in terms of structure, but just like go with it for the romantic parallels or whatever

Jon swings into the pub and announces to no one in particular, “I fucked up.”

The barman, Tormund Giantsbane, knows this drill. He grabs a glass and pours from the tap. “You’re always fuckin’ up, it’s why you’ve got a tab here.”

“I met a girl.” Jon slides onto a stool and downs half the ale his friend passes him in one go. “And I fucked it up.”

“You met a girl?” Tormund echoes with a suggestive waggle of his bushy red eyebrows. “Where the fuck did you meet a girl?”

“Don’t do that thing with your eyebrows at me, and I met her at school.”

“She’s not a mother, is she?”

“ _Christ_ , man,” Jon groans. “No, she’s not a mum, why do you always think it’s a mum?”

Tormund grins. Jon says _always_ as though he’s in the habit of strolling into the pub with woman troubles. But he’d have to have a woman to have troubles with her, and Jon hasn’t jumped back in the dating pool since his split with Ygritte nearly two years ago. That’s how Tormund knows, without a doubt, that whoever this girl is, Jon’s got it bad already.

“You think I haven’t noticed the mothers at those peewee football matches?” His laugh is as big as he is. “Who wouldn’t?”

“You’re supposed to be coaching those kids,” Jon reminds him, “not leering at their mothers.”

“I’m a man of many talents.” Tormund spreads his arms, then drops them and returns to wiping down the glassware. “So who’s your girl, Snow?”

Jon doesn’t bother telling his friend that she’s not _his_ girl. They’ve known each other too long and too well for Jon to labor under the delusion that Tormund properly listens to anything he says, especially when he can take the piss instead.

“Rickon Stark’s sister,” he admits, because to hell with it, he’s said _far_ worse things today. A confession of his inevitable encroaching feelings is nothing compared to the drivel that had fallen from between his lips when faced with Sansa Stark.

But how the hell was he supposed to help himself? Jon wonders, just as he had been for the hour between their first meeting and now. He’d been half in love with her already, all on the word of a five-year-old—but if there’s one thing Jon has learned from his years of teaching, it’s that kids don’t lie. And Rickon had never had anything but the purest of praises for Sansa. Jon had been listening to him talk about his family for a year, and the boy had only babbled more about Sansa in particular once the new term had started.

“She takes care of me now,” Rickon had told Jon on their first day back. He’d been coloring a stick-figure sketch as he did so of a girl in a green dress. “See, this is Sansa. She’s got red hair. I think she looks pretty in green. She looks like a mermaid. But Sansa says she looks like a leprechaun. So she doesn’t wear green. She lets me wear whatever I want, though, see?”

Rickon had held out one of his hands to show off his fingernails, which were painted a vibrant, sparkly blue.

“Aren’t they nice?” he’d said with a little appreciative sigh. “Sansa always colors her nails like this. It’s her favorite. I’m her favorite, too. She says I’m her favorite guy, even though she used to have a boyfriend. But Arya calls him bad words, I heard her. She was at home with us this summer and she said it a lot, even though Sansa left him at the dump.”

“She left him at the dump?” Jon had repeated, a little confused before Rickon’s words clicked into place. “Oh—you mean she dumped him? They broke up?”

“Yeah, she left him at the dump,” Rickon insisted. “So she doesn’t have a boyfriend anymore. Mr. Snow, do you have a girlfriend? Maybe Sansa could be your girlfriend.”

Jon hadn’t the heart to explain to Rickon that he probably shouldn’t be dating any of his students’ guardians, no matter how sweet or cute or single she happens to be. How do you tell that to a five-year-old in terms they’d understand, anyway? So instead, Jon had just ruffled the boy’s hair, returned his smile, and said, “Maybe she could.”

But in true Jon Snow fashion, he’d pretty much shot that horse in the face as soon as he’d met Sansa. He hadn’t been prepared for it. He’d been listening to Rickon chatter away about her nonstop for two weeks, but upon meeting her for the first time, Jon doesn’t know that he ever would have been prepared for someone _that_ punch-you-in-the-face pretty. From her mussed bun to her wrinkled dress to her strappy sandals that looked _impossible_ to put on, he’d been absolutely floored. She’d looked tired and a bit flushed and Jon had practically vomited up his heart at the sight of her.

“I actually said the word ‘kink,’” Jon tells Tormund now, face half-hidden behind his hand in shame. “To her _face_. Right in front of her little brother—oh, shut up,” he snaps while his friend roars with laughter as he recounts the story. He drops his hand, furious and embarrassed all at once. “She probably thinks I’m some sort of sexual deviant. She’s probably going to report me and then I’ll get sacked.”

“You’re not gonna get sacked for being shit at talking to a pretty girl,” Tormund assures him as his chuckles peal out. “You’re not gonna get laid, either, but—”

“Thanks, that’s helpful.” Jon looks around the pub, but at four-thirty on a Monday, it’s practically empty. “Where’s Sam when I need him?”

“He won’t be in ‘til the weekend after next, remember? He’s got wedding plans to attend to with the missus.”

Jon takes another draw from his beer. In light of his own social ineptitude, he’d forgotten about Sam’s hectic schedule for the next few weeks. He and his longtime girlfriend, Gilly, had recently gotten engaged and were in the thick of venues, china patterns, and all the rest. Between their conflicting work schedules and Sam and Gilly’s wedding planning, they hadn’t even had a chance to properly celebrate the engagement. Tormund had suggested throwing a shindig here at the Black Crow Bar at the next available opportunity, which—as Jon is reminded now—won’t be for another three weeks.

He’ll have to give Sam a call beforehand, then; he doesn’t think he can wait nearly a month for advice on how to salvage his sorry reputation in Sansa Stark’s eyes. Sure, she’d smiled and laughed, but Jon had still made a complete arse of himself. She probably hadn’t thought it that funny; she was just being nice, Jon is sure of it.

“So you’re thinking of getting involved with this girl, are you?” Tormund ventures. He might be all bold and brash on the surface, but he can tell when his friend needs more than a good private brooding to come to the right decision.

The trouble is that Jon’s _always_ trying to get away with the good private brooding, and Tormund is having none of it. He’d been around for Jon’s split with Ygritte, and while the breakup itself had been more or less amicable, the aftermath had been ugly. Jon had shut himself away and refused to talk to any of them about it, and the isolation hadn’t done him any favors. So if Jon’s finally falling fast and hard for someone else—which he clearly is, if his current woe-is-me disposition is any indication—he needs someone to push him in the right direction.

“I’ve only just met her,” Jon points out. He wipes condensation from his glass and glares at it as though it had done something to offend him. “How can I even think about getting involved with her?”

Tormund shrugs. “You’re the one who’s thinking about it, so you tell me.”

Well he’s not about to admit to that, is he? Jon grimaces, then wipes his hand on his trouser leg. “Even if I was thinking about it, maybe you were right. I mean, she might as well be somebody’s mum, for all the good it would do me. She’s still guardian to one of my pupils. Too much potential for disaster.”

“Your life’s already a disaster. I say you go for it.”

Jon ignores the jibe and continues trying to convince himself that going after Sansa Stark is a bad call. “I can’t just _go for it_. Her parents just died, now suddenly _she’s_ a parent to a five-year-old, and Rickon’s a handful, I’ll remind you—”

“Best peewee player I’ve ever coached.”

“Right, because he does what you say, which inevitably leads to him shouting ‘MURDER!’ at the other team at the top of his lungs before he rushes them,” Jon says. “So, you know, a _handful_. Sansa’s got enough on her plate without her brother’s teacher coming on to her when she’s this vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable?” Tormund snorts. “You just said yourself, you’ve only just met her. So you don’t know shit about what she’s feeling right now, do you?”

Jon can’t contest that, so he settles for shifting uncomfortably in his seat and taking another generous swig of beer.

“Uh-huh.” Tormund looks smug as he stacks glasses. Jon Snow thinks he’s a smooth one, but he’s not about to pull one over on ol’ Giantsbane. “That’s what I thought.”

* * *

The next couple of days don’t go nearly as poorly as the first. Jon attributes his newfound ease to the fact that he can’t possibly fare worse than letting the word “kink” slip after two minutes of conversation, so really there’s nowhere to go but up at this point.

Of course, it’s still something of a struggle when Sansa shows up dressed to the nines to fetch Rickon from his classroom. Not that Jon hadn’t been immediately smitten by the tousled look she’d sported on Monday—in fact he’d probably liked it a bit _too_ much, as he’d been forced to remind himself that under no circumstances was he permitted to fantasize about mussing her up himself—but he’s hard-pressed to reattach his gaping jaw when she strides in on sleek red kitten heels on Thursday afternoon.

He’d told Tormund that he couldn’t just go for it; he’d even gone so far as almost having convinced himself of the stupidity and impossibility of doing so. But all his half-assed efforts are shot to hell when Sansa walks in on day four, all dolled up in a low-collared blouse and a— _holy shit_ —black leather pencil skirt with a— _fuck me_ —slit up the side and those— _god damn it_ —red red _red_ heels with the ankle strap he’d like to unclasp with his teeth.

“Sansa, you look so fancy!” Rickon says in way of greeting. “Look at your eyeballs!”

“Oh—” Sansa laughs a little, her fingertips touching the corner of her expertly applied eyeliner. Her gaze flicks to Jon, whose own is practically eating her alive. “I had a meeting downtown. Traffic was horrendous, I almost called Osha to come get you instead.”

 _Oh, thank god you didn’t._ Jon’s eyes sweep not-entirely-inconspicuously up her legs and hover around her exposed collarbone. He swallows, hard, and somehow finds his voice around the lump in his throat.

“No worries.” Son of a bitch, his traitorous voice hitches like he’s going through puberty all over again. He grins at her in an attempt to hide it. “You’re right on time.”

“I would have skipped the meeting entirely, honestly,” Sansa tells him while Rickon gathers his things. “But Brienne said Renly had to see me _in person_ , at _once_. He even called me ‘young lady,’ apparently, although he’s five years my senior at most.”

Jon’s brow furrows in concern. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh, it’s fine.” Sansa waves off his worry. “Renly’s just got a flair for the dramatic. He wanted to go over some new site features with me, I had a few things to pitch, and then of course he wants me to ‘please try, darling’ to write a column about my love life as a single mother, failing to realize that I wasn’t dating before I took custody of Rickon, either.”

“You were dating Harry,” Rickon pipes up. He looks pointedly at Jon. _“Harry.”_

Sansa rounds on him, her array of loose curls swinging forth to hide her blushing face. “How do you even know about Harry?”

“You and Arya talk real loud.” He shrugs, as though stating the obvious. “Plus he was texting you when I played Cookie Jam on your phone.”

Sansa digs into her bag for her phone, which she scrolls through furiously as though she has major damage control to do. Jon wonders if she means to text Harry back—maybe to tell him to go jump off a bridge, hopefully—but any looming fears are quashed when she releases a long breath and says, “Well thanks for not texting him back, Rickon. I’ve established a very firm cold shoulder policy when it comes to Harry, and I’d hate to ground you for breaking it.”

“She wouldn’t ground me,” Rickon says to Jon in a rather loud, conspiratorial whisper. “Harry’s grounded. But she won’t leave me at the dump with him.”

Sansa glares at him, then turns an apologetic smile on Jon. It seems those are all too frequent between them already. “Sorry, is there anything else about my personal life you’d like to know?”

_Yeah, actually: Exactly how useless was Harry in bed, and can I make it up to you on behalf of all mankind by going down on you until I pass out from lack of oxygen?_

Miracle of miracles, Jon keeps himself in check and manages not to supersede the “kink” incident with blatant sexual harassment. Instead, he tells her, “I think we’re beyond professionalism at this point. Besides, in the interest of full disclosure, er… Rickon may have already mentioned your ex-boyfriend once or twice.”

 _“Brilliant,”_ Sansa huffs, then blows an errant strand of hair from her eyes. “I suppose it’s a good thing I haven’t got anything going on in my personal life, then, lest he broadcast it to anyone who gives him the time of day. Renly would have a field day with the information, I’m sure, and then I’d be even more swamped than I am now.

“Sorry,” she says again with a shake of her head. Another smile paints her lips, this one markedly less genuine than the one before. “He really piled the work on me today, I’m still in my head. Overwhelmed.”

Her eyes wander to Rickon, who had ambled over to his cubby to trade after-school snacks with his friend. Jon’s gaze follows hers for a moment before settling back on her tired profile. The makeup does a good job covering the exhaustion around her eyes, but there’s no mistaking the way her shoulders slump and her mouth shudders in a series of suppressed yawns. Every time her lips twitch, her eyes brighten as though she’s ready to cry at any moment.

The thought nearly has Jon reeling into a panic. He doesn’t know how to comfort a hysterical woman, least of all one who he’d very much like to think better of him than the “sure, he hugged me when I was crying, but he still got a boner” guy. Not that the thought of a crying Sansa arouses him— _god no, what the hell?_ —but Jon knows himself too well to think he wouldn’t go a little crazy if he had Sansa folded into his arms.

For Christ’s sake, he’s only known her for four days, anyway. That’s not a reasonable amount of time to know someone before you start hugging them close and drying their tears. What the fuck’s the matter with him?

It’s probably for the best that Sansa doesn’t give him the time to examine that question, as she turns back to face him and says, “Rickon loves you, you know. I’ve never seen a child so excited about school, not even Bran and he’s the most bookish of any of us. I swear Rickon dreads the weekends more than the Mondays. Which is a bit insulting personally, but…”

She trails off, her teeth catching her bottom lip and forcing Jon’s stomach into a series of backflips. Her gaze is quite determinedly focused on his collar, her brow creased as though she’s trying to convince herself to do something, and then she’s meeting his eye before he can think twice about it and she continues, “I just wanted to say thank you. I mean, I know it’s your job, but I honestly don’t know how I could bear to send Rickon off to school every day to any teacher but you. I’m sure you haven’t meant to—I’m sorry, I don’t want to make you feel responsible for Rickon’s well-being or anything, but I’ve just—honestly I’ve been so tired and it doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to stop, so now I’m babbling nonsense at you—”

It’s a small step, but it feels like a plunge when Jon reaches for Sansa’s shoulder and gives it a reassuring squeeze. Her skin is hot beneath the thin material of her blouse and the contact sends a jolt through Jon that he hopes he hides. Screw what Tormund had said, because maybe Jon _doesn’t_ know how she feels, but right now Sansa’s tipping on the precipice between keeping it together and falling apart. Jon’s not blind, and he couldn’t miss the furious blinking of her eyes even if he were.

“Of course I feel responsible. Come on, Sansa—” he offers her a smile, and takes another plunge when he swipes his thumb over her cheekbone— “I don’t just file and forget my students when they leave for the day. I know he’s been through a lot. You both have. It can’t be easy on your own.”

“Oh, I’m not alone.” Sansa’s digging through her bag again, this time for a tissue to stem the tears that are clinging to her lashes. “I mean, well, Arya and Bran and Robb, they’re rather far off. Margaery’s even busier than I am at work, she’s always bouncing from one city to the next, but I’ve got Brienne here, at least. I’m fine, really, it’s just been such a long day.”

Her hands are shaking when she wipes her eyes, but Jon says nothing of it. He shoves his own hands uselessly into his pockets and wonders if there will ever be a time when it’s appropriate to touch her, to comfort her, to say something more substantial than “It’s alright.”

God damn, but is he in deep.

“Listen…” He hesitates for a beat, weighing the pros and cons of what he’s about to do. But then Sansa’s bright eyes are on him again and he thinks _fuck it_ , there can’t be anything wrong with taking care of her, can there? Someone needs to.

Without giving himself another moment to reconsider, Jon rips a scrap from the notepad on his desk and scribbles his phone number across it. He hands it to Sansa, who takes it with an uncertain hand, and he says, “I know you’re fine, but if you’re ever not, you can call me. Anytime.”

“Jon…” Oh, hell, does his name sound good when she says it. She looks at his chicken scratch like it’s the face of god. “Jon, I couldn’t. I can’t disrupt your life just because I’m a bit overworked from time to time—”

“You won’t be disrupting anything,” Jon assures her. “Really, I haven’t got a thing going on once I’ve checked out of school for the day. I mean, I’m sure eventually I’m going to have to do something to help out my best mate, what with his wedding and all, but that’s… It’s not even on the table right now.”

She’s chewing on her lip again, and Jon doesn’t think he could take it if she refuses something she so clearly needs. Something he’s so willing to give to her.

“Sansa, please.” The words are too earnest, too pleading, but Jon can’t bring himself to regret them when Sansa looks at him again. “I haven’t got a thing in the world going on. Anything I’m doing, I can drop at a moment’s notice. I want to help, whether it’s with Rickon or if you just need someone to talk to. You don’t have to be alone all the time, not even sometimes if you don’t want to be. I’m just a phone call away.”

 _I’m here for you_ , he wants to add, but somehow, in the midst of all he’s already said, that seems like too much. However true it is, the last thing he wants to do is scare her off, or overwhelm her with promises she’s not ready to hear and frankly he shouldn’t be ready to make.

 _What is it about this girl?_ Jon wonders while he searches her face, perhaps too intently, yet he can’t stop. She makes him want to do anything for her—maybe because she’d never ask. Maybe because she stands so tall and only falters when she thinks no one will notice. Maybe it’s because she’d rearranged her whole life into something that she’d never anticipated, perhaps never wanted, because she loves her little brother that much. Because she loves that boy more than she’d loved whatever her life was before him, so much that she’d been willing to give it up, to change her course just so he could have a future where he belonged.

Jon’s never known anyone so selfless, so unconcerned with what she wants that she’d set it all aside for someone else. Maybe that’s what it is about her: She’ll take care of anyone before herself, and it makes Jon want to be the someone she turns to when she needs.

“Don’t overthink it, okay?” he requests of her now. “I can help—I _want_ to help. It’s obvious you can do this on your own, trust me. But you don’t have to.”

Sansa nods, wiping beneath her eyes all the while. She keeps her gaze steady on the used tissue she’s folding and unfolding in her hands when she says, “Thank you, Jon.”

“Of course,” he says, as though there’s nothing to it.

Because he’d been half in love with her already, hadn’t he? Jon thinks privately. Even before he’d met her. So now that he has, really, how bad could it be to let himself go all the way?


	3. strange life i live

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: i’m using this opportunity to shamelessly promote my best friend’s hp: lilyxjames modern au, so scoot over to GhostofBambi’s page to read “Filthy Animals” and leave her the stellar reviews she’s earned with that masterpiece. even if you’re not into hp, it’ll get to you. y’all know how i love my romcoms, and this one’s my absolute favorite. like, meg ryan, eat your heart out.
> 
> p.s. i have since been informed that houses in britain do not, in fact, have air conditioners. but i’d already written the opening scene, so please excuse my american sensibilities and instead take my ignorance for a ~necessary plot device

Jon had meant to call Sam for advice on his completely clueless pursuit of Sansa Stark, but as it turns out, someone else calls Jon first.

The first time the unknown number flashes across his screen, Jon’s heart does a little dip, and he swears he’ll chuck his phone if it’s a telemarketer when it could have been Sansa. He’d given her his number just two days prior, and he hadn’t expected her to call so soon—or at all, his pessimism reminds him—so with his luck it probably _is_ a bloody telemarketer. All the same, he answers as soon as the blood stops roaring in his ears.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Snow, you have to come over. I locked Sansa in the bathroom.”

Jon blinks a few times in an attempt to get his bearings. But even if Sansa’s name hadn’t been mentioned, he knows that voice as well as he knows his own, so there can really be no mistake that it’s— “Rickon?”

“Yeah, I locked Sansa in the bathroom because she wouldn’t let me call you and the air conditioner’s broke and she can’t fix it. I said ‘Sansa, Sansa—’” Rickon sighs in a way that suggests he’s the adult, and Sansa the child— “‘Mr. Snow can fix things.’ And she said she could fix it but she can’t, so when she went to the bathroom I put a chair under the door handle and stole her phone.”

His voice drops to a whisper, and Jon can hear a faint _pound-pound-pound_ in the background. “Mr. Snow, she’s _mad_. You have to come fix the conditioner and help me hide.”

Reasonably speaking, there is no universe in which Jon could refuse such a request. He says _reasonably_ because he figures he knows himself well enough by now to know that playing the hero is sort of his thing. That’s why he’d given Sansa his number in the first place, wasn’t it? Jon would like to think his motives had been wholly altruistic, but even if they were, he’s not going to pass up a chance to impress her.

He acknowledges that this makes him sound like an overeager teenager riding on adolescent lust. He also acknowledges that he doesn’t care, and—with Rickon’s help—locates Sansa’s address on his GPS.

It’s hardly ten minutes to the house. Rickon is sitting out on the porch swing, slurping so contentedly on a juice pouch that you’d think he hadn’t locked his sister in the bathroom for the past half an hour. As Jon jogs up the drive towards him, Rickon waves and says, “Hi, Mr. Snow.”

“Hullo, Rickon.” Jon pauses at the front door, looking between it and his student. “Should I leave you out here by yourself?”

“It’s hot in there.” Rickon fans his face, then takes another generous slurp of juice. “Plus if I go inside Sansa’s gonna yell at me some more. I think she’s still yelling.”

Jon nods. As far as he’s been able to tell, he’s only seen Sansa at something like her worst: Tired, stressed, overworked, and not entirely sure what she’s doing. It’s not that he’d ever disparage her for those things—far from it—but Jon has never dealt with Sansa in a temper, and he has a feeling that it’s not so easily contained.

Nor does it appear that she’s even _trying_ to contain it. It is dreadfully stuffy in the house, so Jon can hardly blame her; besides, it makes the task of finding her much easier. He simply follows the sounds of her shouts and the rattling of the door handle all the way inside, through a cozy sitting room and into the hall, where he spots the offending chair about halfway down. It slams against the door as Sansa furiously works the handle on the other side.

“RICKON EDDARD STARK, IF YOU DON’T LET ME OUT RIGHT NOW, I SWEAR—oh, _shit_.”

Sansa stumbles forward as she loses the leverage of the door she’d been whaling on when Jon opens it, and he’s forced to catch her lest she face-plant at his feet. He doesn’t mind in the slightest when his hands grip her bare waist because for _fuck’s_ sake, she’s in nothing but a sports bra and shorts and she’s slick with sweat and that’s— _gross, Jon, it’s gross_ , he tries to convince himself to no avail, as his mind is too busy conjuring up other ways he could get her in this state.

_You’re an incorrigible perv, mate_ , he thinks, and resigns himself to the fact that he’s just going to have to learn to live with it.

“My knight in skinny jeans,” Sansa half-mutters, half-laughs as she straightens. The heat of her hands leaves his forearms, and Jon relinquishes his own grip so hastily that it must be obvious.

“Rickon called.”

Sansa huffs. “I know.”

“So you need the air-con fixed, do you?” Jon tries not to smirk at her, but he does and Sansa gives in with a laugh.

“Fine!” she relents. He’s already here, isn’t he? No sense in letting him go to waste when the house could be tolerable again. “But it’s only because I’m so hot.”

_Yeah, you are._

If Jon could punch himself in the face without raising eyebrows at his mental state, he would have chosen this moment to do so. But gods be good, at least he’s managing to keep his thoughts to himself this time.

In the end, Jon does fix the air-con with little trouble—far less than Rickon finds himself in, at any rate. Sansa gives him a proper scolding and sends him to his room, but he doesn’t seem to be terribly fussed about it. He smiles at Jon and skips off, giggling merrily all the way to his bedroom as though being grounded is some delicious treat, rather than the punishment his sister had intended it to be.

“It’s because I didn’t revoke his television privileges,” Sansa decides aloud when she returns to the sitting room. She hands Jon a beer, which he accepts gratefully, and pops the cap on her own. “Just watch, in an hour he’ll be napping to ChuckleVision reruns, happy as can be.”

She drops to the floor beside Jon, their backs resting against the couch. The air-con hasn’t quite kicked into full gear yet, so the house is still sticky with humidity and the hardwood offers some relief. Sansa presses the sweating beer bottle against her even sweatier chest before taking a long pull. Jon tries not to stare and fails miserably; it’s hardly been a week but staring at her has already become something of a character staple for him.

“I owe you dinner or something,” Sansa says, her eyes on the ceiling fan that’s whirring genially and uselessly overheard. “I mean… Well. You didn’t need to drive over here.”

Jon chuckles. She’s some kind of stubborn, isn’t she? “Sansa, you were locked in the bathroom.”

She can only say “Well…” again, shake her head, and distract herself with another draw of Strongbow. Jon follows suit, but for once says something of substance.

“I told you to call if you needed anything,” he reminds her. She’s still intent on the ceiling fan, so he can look his fill of her without succumbing to self-consciousness: she’s flushed with heat, perhaps a little embarrassment, her mouth pulled in a slight frown he’s dying to kiss away… He can admit that much to himself, can’t he? There’s hardly any helping it. “Why didn’t you?”

Now, Sansa’s lips purse in thought and she contemplates the mouth of her half-empty bottle. Jon is content to give her all the time she needs to mull it over; truthfully, he’s glad that she’s taking the time to give him a real answer at all, instead of brushing it off as he feared she might.

“It’s not that I didn’t believe you,” she says to her bottle. Her fingertips trace the rim and Jon’s eyes follow them, transfixed. “I don’t mean to make this into a bigger deal than it is, it’s just… I’m not used to someone outside our family barging in and saying ‘Let me help you’ without wanting something in return. I hate to say it’s because I don’t trust men, but… Well, that’s what Arya would say if she were here to explain it to you, and despite our differences Arya knows me better than anyone else. So I suppose she’s right.”

She’s not looking at him, but Jon nods all the same. The thought that she can’t trust him stings, but Jon knows it’s not personal, and he can’t blame her for her past when he’s only just walked into her present.

Does she feel this poorly all the time? Jon wants to ask, but he knows better than that. She always seems so preoccupied, at the very least, and that’s certainly not a _good_ feeling. He wonders what it would take to make her feel good.

His gut clenches at the thought, but he doesn’t act on it—not on that purely carnal aspect of it, anyway. Jon knows he wants her; that’s a no-brainer. He only wants her to want him, too, and more than that he wants to be someone worthy of that. It’s obvious that no one else has been, no matter the chances Sansa has given them, and Jon won’t be just another disappointing notch on her bedpost that she perhaps hadn’t wanted in the first place.

So for now, his hand smooths over her thigh, reaching for hers; he grasps her fingers tightly enough that he thinks he might be able to pour everything he wants to say into her by touch alone.

Finally, her gaze breaks from every other place in the room she’d rather be looking, and locks onto his. There’s a smile in her eyes, and Jon answers it with his own.

“I get it,” he tells her. His thumb caresses her knuckles, tender and reassuring. “I do. I mean it, just as much as I mean it when I say you can call me. Absolutely whenever, Sansa, you can call me.”

For a moment, there is nothing but the whirring of the fan and the little kick of the air-con. The electric shock between them radiates from his skin into hers and back again, and on and on and on until Jon thinks it’s not her hand in his, but _their_ hand, all on its own, and he wants nothing more than to keep it that way for as long as he can.

But then Sansa’s hand is squeezing his back and suddenly it’s his hand in hers, and she says, with no further trepidation or hesitation of any sort, “Okay. Okay, Jon. I’ll call you.”

And that, he thinks, is quite enough for him.

* * *

When Sansa relays the story to Margaery during their next video chat date, her friend laughs heartily and says, “Rickon! Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match. Who knew?”

Sansa rolls her eyes but can’t hide her own grin. “Tell me about it.”

“Tell _me_ you’re seeing him again.”

“Erm… I have,” Sansa admits, much to Margaery’s unabashed delight. “A few times, actually.”

It’s always when she calls. Jon hadn’t been lying when he said he’d drop anything for her call. The fact that Sansa had even entertained the thought that Jon was talking out of his arse just goes to show her lousy romantic history. Not that he’s being romantic with her, Sansa is quick to remind herself, and tries to forget the way his hand so often envelops hers. He’s just being… consistent.

Yes. Consistent. That’s a safe way to look at it.

He always answers on the first ring. The last time, she’d heard running water in the background, but he’d still pulled into the drive fifteen minutes later with wet hair and toothpaste on his chin. She’d laughed and wiped it away with her thumb, and standing that close Jon had looked as though he’d wanted to kiss her. Or perhaps it was simply that Sansa wanted to kiss him and now she’s projecting.

“You didn’t have to jump out the shower and come running,” she’d told him. “It’s not like Rickon locked me in the bathroom again.”

But he hadn’t cared. He’d been in the middle of his nightly routine— _naked_ , Sansa’s sex-deprived mind adds lasciviously—and still he’d put a halt to whatever it is he does to unwind, just because she’d called. She didn’t even need anything; she’d only wanted someone to talk to. And he’d been there as though there was never any question as to whether or not he would.

It’s always after Rickon’s fast asleep and Sansa can’t take the quiet. So perhaps she is lonely, as Brienne had said, but she won’t admit to it. It sounds too sad, and Sansa doesn’t want to be sad anymore; she refuses it.

So she calls Jon and he comes running. They sit on the porch, beers in hand, and they talk. Nothing too personal or even all that serious, they just talk until the sun has long set and, after a considerable but comfortable silence, Jon regretfully says that it’s getting late and he should go. And Sansa—stupid as she is—lets him leave.

But it’s not stupid, she tells herself time and again as she returns his wave and watches him back out of the drive. It’s smart. It’s the right thing to do. She can’t just let him stay the night, no matter how nice his hand might have felt holding hers. He’s always holding her hand—ever since that first afternoon, he takes it easily, as though holding hers is what his hands are meant to do.

If Sansa allowed herself to think of any of this as romantic, that in particular would be dreadfully, delightfully so. But she won’t let herself think of it that way. She doesn’t let herself think of it as anything.

So yes, technically speaking, she had seen him again. Just not in the way Margaery seems to think, as the next thing to come out of her mouth is “And how much of him _have you seen_ , exactly?”

She throws in a suggestive eyebrow lift, just in case Sansa doesn’t catch her totally discreet meaning.

“No more than usual. It’s not like that,” Sansa protests when Margaery’s face settles into sheer disbelief. “He just… comes over a few evenings. He spends time with me, just an hour or so, after I’ve put Rickon to bed.”

“Then why are you still so mopey?” Margaery asks. Impatient as she is by nature, the question is almost a demand. “I mean, an hour or so every other evening isn’t much time, I suppose. You’re still lonely, aren’t you?”

“I’m _not_ ,” Sansa insists to little avail. “God, why does everyone keep saying that?”

“You’re not particularly difficult to read.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Margaery points an accusatory finger at her screen. “Don’t get huffy with me. I’m not the only one who thinks so. Have you talked to Arya lately?”

“Yesterday.” Sansa’s brow creases in a frown. “Have _you_ talked to Arya lately?”

“She texted to ask me if I could drag you out of the house anytime soon,” Margaery reveals, as self-possessed as ever, “so I assume you’ve been a shut-in.”

This is just too much, Sansa thinks, reeling in her indignation. Is she so pathetic that her friends and family are talking behind her back like she’s at some sort of risk? Like she’s so fragile and incapable that she’s bound to snap or bolt at any moment?

“I’m not a shut-in,” she retorts hotly, ready as ever for this argument even though she’s not prepared in the slightest. “I leave the house _at least_ once a day—”

“When you pick Rickon up from school, yeah? That’s what I thought,” Margaery says when Sansa can’t argue the fact. “Well I suppose it’s all for the best, since the handsome teacher is bound to fall for you if he hasn’t already. Just keep sticking your pretty nose into his life like you are and it’s a given.”

Still irritated with no end in sight but unable to form any cohesive debate, Sansa merely slumps in her seat and mutters, “You don’t know that he’s handsome.”

“Oh yes I do. I Facebooked him. Just to get a peek,” Margaery defends herself when her friend bristles again. “I was curious, and I was not disappointed. Which is why I think you should call him. _You_ , not Rickon. And not to _talk_ , and definitely not to fix the air unit, either. He might be able to _clean your_ _pipes_ , though, if you know what I mean—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“I’m perfectly serious,” Margaery informs her with an imperious sniff. “Spending a few evenings with the guy is all well and good, but when was the last time you had an orgasm?”

Sansa nearly chucks her phone. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It’s a release. A delicious, physical, emotional release.” A sly, sickeningly sweet grin crosses her face. Sansa knows Margaery well enough to know that her friend is reliving a particularly satisfying experience, and it makes her want to chuck her phone all the more.

When she comes down from whatever memory she’s replaying in her head, Margaery snaps back to attention and continues, all business, “It would make you feel better. You wouldn’t be all tense—look at you, I can only see your tiny little video self and I can still tell you’re all wound up in the shoulders.”

“So I’ll get a massage!” Sansa says, with no intention of doing such a thing, as she apparently has no concept of self-care. At least she can admit that much, she credits herself rather glumly.

“I bet Mr. Snow would give you a massage.” Margaery wiggles her eyebrows again. “Like. _Sensually._ And then if he doesn’t go down on you, I’ll owe you ten pounds.”

Okay, this conversation has far exceeded “too much.” Sansa doesn’t quite know where it is now—what’s the next stop beyond _too much_?—so she can only splutter out a _“What?”_

“Sansa, please,” Margaery implores without much tact; but then, she’s always been more blunt than beat-around-the-bush. “I’m sure you’ve seen his mouth. Those pouty lips were made for a good pussy sesh.”

“I’m hanging up on you.”

Margaery shrugs, then places a hand over her heart. “If it’s so you can call Jon in my stead, then I humbly accept.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Sansa says, ever the stubborn mule. “What would I say, anyway? ‘Oh, hi, Jon, my friend Margaery reckons you’re built for my sexual gratification, what say we put her theory to the test’?”

“That’s actually rather good. Eloquent, anyway.” Margaery strokes her chin thoughtfully. “Have you been rehearsing pick-up lines?”

Sansa almost doesn’t want to, but she laughs in spite of herself. “Honestly, I just… There’s nothing going on.”

“Do you want there to be?”

_Yes_ , she thinks, wistfully and desperately and hopelessly. But out loud she says, “It doesn’t matter. Even if I did… he doesn’t want that. Who would? I’m an emotionally volatile surrogate parent who can’t even make enough time for a regular sleep cycle, let alone a relationship. He doesn’t feel that way about me.” _Hand-holding notwithstanding._

“Sure.” Margaery nods with no conviction whatsoever. But she’s not about to argue with Sansa’s unrelenting self-esteem issues further; that’s just not the way their friendship operates. She’ll get through to her eventually, but the middle of a video chat isn’t the time or place for it.

No, Margaery thinks as Sansa rattles off all the nonsensical reasons she and Jon just can’t happen. Trying to get through to Sansa over the phone has never been the way to go, but a night on the town with her best friend has always done the trick…

The cogs in Margaery’s brain are turning so rapidly that she can almost feel the steam pouring out her ears. She’d rather expertly Facebook stalked Mr. Jon Snow as soon as Sansa had gotten all dewy-eyed and dropped his name. Not for the first time, Margaery thanks her own talents and social prowess when she realizes that she and Mr. Snow have quite a few mutual friends—most importantly in this case, a certain Sam and Gilly, the latter of whom is an intern at Baratheon Media, and the couple happens to have an engagement party coming up at a nearby pub in just over a week.

Yes, Margaery thinks, thoroughly satisfied even though she’s only in the beginning stages of her grand scheme, but already she’d found out plenty about Jon Snow to concoct a proper plan to sprinkle a little Love Potion #9 between him and her most treasured of friends.

Truly, Sansa means more to Margaery than she likely realizes, as Sansa had become more prone to self-doubt as the years went by. She doesn’t quite see her own worth anymore, and she’s got a string of _the_ shittiest boyfriends to thank for that, Margaery knows. It’s all the more reason for Margaery to interfere with her friend’s lackluster love life when she can.

The fact is, no matter how Sansa might want to deny it now, after all she’s been through, she’s still a romantic at heart. And as far as Margaery is concerned, she’s paid her dues—which she never should have had to pay in the first place, mind—and she more than deserves that sweep-you-off-your-feet love she’s always wanted. She’s just become too stubborn to let herself have it. Instead, she shacked up with Harry Hardyng and look where that had led her—here, now, refusing to take a chance on something _good_ , on someone worth it.

Of course, Margaery can’t know for sure that Jon Snow is worth anything at all. Maybe he’s not worth all the effort she’s about to expend on his behalf, but then… Margaery has been around through all of Sansa’s romantic ups-and-downs, and she’s never seen her friend light up the way she does when she talks about Jon Snow. It’s like she can finally be herself, because this guy is clever enough to like her just the way she is.

_Finally._

As luck—or perhaps even fate—would have it, Rickon bursts into the room and demands to speak to his Auntie Margaery. Sansa pretends to be rather affronted at his tone, but she passes him the phone and heads to the kitchen to make them a snack. Margaery knows how meticulous Sansa is when it comes to spreading peanut butter over celery sticks, so she figures she has a good ten minutes to put her plan into motion.

She gives Rickon her best conspiratorial grin. “Hello, darling.”

“Hello, pumpkin,” he happily replies, but then he’s all business, no nonsense when he asks, “Sansa likes Mr. Snow?”

“How did you—” Margaery doesn’t flatter herself when she says she’s not often taken aback; she’s simply _that_ cool and collected. Leave it to a five-year-old to shatter her own self-perception. “You were listening at the door, weren’t you?”

Rickon shrugs his little shoulders. “Sansa left it open.”

“Fine.” Margaery waves away his impertinence. He _is_ only a child, after all, and anyway this makes her task all the easier. “Listen, my dumpling, I was talking to your Auntie Arya the other day—”

“She doesn’t like to be called auntie,” Rickon interrupts. “She’s Lieutenant Arya to me.”

“Oh?” she plays along for a moment. “Not Commander Arya, then? I always thought she’d prefer that.”

“She says she knows her limits.”

Margaery laughs, but waves that away, too. She’s on a mission here, and she can’t let Rickon’s own short attention span deter her own. “Well, then, I was talking to Lieutenant Arya yesterday, and she thinks Sansa could use a night out. It’s too late for me to take this weekend off work, but I can do next. Think you could make yourself sparse?”

“Maybe…” Rickon seems to consider the question. “But what’s ‘sparse’?”

“How’d you like to spend next weekend at Mama Brienne’s?” Margaery knows Brienne’s schedule better than she knows her own, and she’s sure the older woman would be happy to take Rickon off Sansa’s hands if it meant she could let loose for forty-eight hours or so. The pair of them _have_ discussed the situation at length over their coffee breaks at the office, after all.

Clearly, Sansa and Jon have no problem spending time together. But as far as Margaery is concerned, they’re going to need a more relaxed social setting and a few stronger drinks first if they actually want to go anywhere with this little dance of theirs. And Rickon, darling boy that he is, is a bit of a roadblock in that regard.

But when it comes to spending time with Brienne, he’s easy enough to persuade. Rickon bounces on the balls of his feet and squeals excitedly, “Oooh! Mama Brienne’s!”

“Good.” Margaery smiles before adopting a serious expression. “But you can’t tell Sansa, you hear? I want it to be a surprise.”

In actuality, Margaery just doesn’t know that Sansa would agree if she knew, but Margaery can’t imagine she’d be able to explain the intricacies of the female brain to Rickon just yet. Someday, yes, but right now she needs him to keep his focus on the matter at hand.

“Yes, I can keep a secret!” Rickon gives her that little smirk she’d taught him. “But you hafta tell me, Auntie Margaery—you _hafta_ —does Sansa like Mr. Snow? Really?”

“Well…” Margaery presses her lips together. “What do you think? Does Mr. Snow like Sansa?”

“Oh, yeah,” Rickon says with gusto. “Yeah, whenever Sansa picks me up from school, Mr. Snow’s face goes like this—”

He stops talking to sigh loudly, then leaves his mouth lolling open and pants like a dog. He even tries to flutter his eyelashes a few times, bless him.

“Oh, is that so?” Margaery laughs. _There’s a start, at the absolute least, and it’s quite a lot_ , she thinks, pleased as punch. It looks as though Jon Snow might be worth her best-laid plans, indeed.

“Like the Big Bad Wolf cartoon,” Rickon explains further. “The old one, where his eyes pop out of his head and he goes _ow-ow-OOOOOW!_ ” He ends on a not half-bad impression of the cartoon. “You know which I mean, right, Auntie Margaery?”

She nods, still chuckling. “I do. And since that’s the case… Well then, my darling dot, I’ll tell you—that’s what Sansa looks like when she talks about Mr. Snow, too.”

Two of his front teeth might be missing, but Rickon cracks a thousand-watt smile, anyway. “I knew it.”

“You sure did, clever boy, you,” Margaery congratulates him and settles back in her seat, smug as ever, and all the while thinking— _now we just have to make sure they know it, too._


	4. you can share with me

The weekend comes in a rush of early autumn chill, a welcome respite from last week’s heatwave. The timing is nothing short of apropos, as Friday brings the start of Rickon’s peewee football season, and the last thing Sansa wants is to succumb to heat exhaustion at a playschool sporting event. As it is, she regrets her sundress and thin cardigan before the game even starts, and Brienne hits her with an I-told-you-so lift of her eyebrows.

“Don’t look at me like that!” Sansa all but whines. “We were pushing thirty-five just last week.”

“I remember,” Brienne says.

“So quit looking at me like that!” Sansa repeats.

“I’m not looking at you like anything.” Brienne taps away at her tablet, intent on another spur-of-the-moment project with a nevertheless strict deadline (those were Renly’s specialty). “I’m working.”

Sansa snorts as she rubs down her legs for some warmth, and pointedly ignores Brienne’s eyebrows this time. Her eyes scan the field and its perimeter: parents in travel chairs, siblings digging through or sitting atop coolers, and across the pitch the two teams huddle up on either end. Rickon’s team—the Wild Things, Sansa thinks with a smirk—wear a garish orange that clashes terribly with his nearly-red hair, but it’s hardly noticeable considering how much face paint he and his fellows sport.

Sansa had been skeptical when Rickon begged her to paint his face for the game earlier that afternoon. She’d thought he was putting her on until he showed her snapshots from last year, which proved, lo and behold, that his teammates do regularly disguise themselves beneath layers of painted-on whiskers, spots, and stripes. With no further fuss, she had transformed him into a wolf (his favorite), and he had been snapping and snarling gleefully for the better part of the day as a result.

His coach—an almost frighteningly large, burly man with hair redder and more plentiful than either Rickon or Sansa’s—could be heard bellowing clear across the field. Sansa laughs to herself as he leads his charges in choruses of indecipherable war cries. The man can really sell it, she thinks appreciatively. No wonder Rickon had been so enthusiastic earlier.

“If you’re laughing at Tormund,” a voice breaks through her thoughts of how easy it will be to put Rickon to bed later, “don’t let him catch you. You’ll only encourage him.”

Sansa and Brienne both look ‘round, but the latter dutifully returns to her tablet almost immediately with only the faintest of grins on her pale mouth. Sansa wonders at that, but her curiosity doesn’t stop her from offering a full-watt smile for the approaching Jon Snow. If her heart somersaults at the sight of him, she hopes she hides it well.

“I was actually thinking that Rickon’ll be right knackered tonight,” she tells him by way of greeting. “Out by seven, and he might even sleep through the night.”

Jon cocks his head, considering, as he slides onto the edge of the metal bleachers next to Sansa’s chair. “Still. Tormund doesn’t need the encouragement.”

“You know him?”

“Yeah, have for years.” Jon spares his friend a glance but soon returns his attentions to Sansa. _Go_ _figure._ “He doesn’t like to play favorites, but Rickon’s definitely his.”

“Well, then, I like him immensely already.”

Jon side-eyes her with a grin. “Don’t tell him that, either.”

Sansa chuckles, and they fall again into the companionable silence that has begun to define their relationship. It’s nice, Sansa thinks, to sit with a man without fretting over how best to impress him. She’s always tried too hard, a flaw that’s easy enough to identify in retrospect, but it’s so notable this time because she doesn’t feel the need to do so. From the beginning, the men in her life had demanded something of her: attention, recognition, validation, a justification for her shortcomings and an explanation as to why he should look past them.

She hadn’t realized how weary it had made her, but now, with Jon—even if he doesn’t feel _that way_ about her, and surely he can’t—she realizes everything she’d been missing out on with a man before. Comfort, ease, security. She won’t say she hasn’t felt foolish in front of him before, but he hadn’t made her feel that way; indeed, he had done everything to alleviate her insecurities.

It’s the strangest thing—at least, it would be to anyone who doesn’t know her—but Sansa had never expected to meet someone who wouldn’t, at best, laugh at her.

But now there’s Jon. He listens and cares and soothes, and it’s so effortless that Sansa can’t imagine how she’s gone so long without this before. She’d say it to him—she’d say it all—but she’s already resolved that whatever this thing is between them, it’s nothing more than friendly. And that’s okay. It really is. No matter what Sansa’s traitorous heart wants otherwise, Jon already means so much in such a short stretch of time. She wouldn’t give up what they have—whatever it is—for anything as uncertain as a romance that he probably doesn’t want.

As deep in her self-reflection as she is, Sansa remains unaware of her surroundings until a whistle blows, shattering the air and her reverie all at once. She is henceforth unable to concentrate on her own (likely overdramatic) woes, as the peewee match commences in a fit of utterly delightful chaos.

The Wild Things are, for the most part, running rampant and directionless around the field, spurred on by Tormund’s shouts. They’re screaming nonsense, and the ball is being passed from foot to head to hand, without any regard to how the sport is meant to be played.

“Oh my god.” Sansa covers her mouth to stifle a laugh when Rickon, who’s supposed to be goalie, grabs the ball and hightails it to the other end of the pitch. He throws it into the other team’s net and shares a victory screech with one of his mates.

Jon traces the shape of her smile with his gaze, tucking it deep in his memory, just because he doesn’t want to forget what it looks like when she’s happy.

“You’ve never been to one of these before, have you?” He doesn’t say _Because I would’ve noticed you in_ _a goddamn heartbeat_ , but if you ask him it’s pretty obvious that’s what he’s thinking.

Sansa shakes her head. “It’s selfish, but my weekends used to be busy. I suppose you already know about Harry, so…”

She tries to shrug it off, but the thought irritates her still as she explains, “Well, he never wanted to come. After the first few arguments over it, it was just easier not to bring it up at all. Is that awful of me?”

Jon shakes his head. “No, it’s not awful—not of you, anyway. Pretty shitty of Harry, though. But I get it. My girlfriend was like that. Ex-girlfriend,” he clarifies, just in case Sansa doesn’t catch on to his clear-as-day interest in her. “Ygritte said it was too domestic. Reckon she didn’t want me getting any _ideas_.”

One of the boys from the other team has already admitted defeat and is laying in the middle of the grass, carefree and at peace with himself as his teammates and opponents alike run around him.

“Did you?” Sansa prompts. “Get _ideas_ , I mean?”

“Sure.” Jon shrugs. “I guess that’s why we broke up—I had _ideas_ and she didn’t want any part of it. She didn’t want to be tied down and I couldn’t compromise what I wanted, either. I suppose we stayed together as long as we did because we both thought the other would change their mind. She thought I’d grow out of what she said was forced on me, that she and I were all we needed without a label or a ‘conventional’ future.”

“That’s it, Rickon!” Tormund bellows as the boy tackles an opponent to the ground and the referee’s whistle cuts into the air. “NO MERCY!”

“NO MERCY!” Rickon yells back, but accepts his time-out on the bench nonetheless.

“I wouldn’t call this terribly conventional, though,” Jon muses as Sansa laughs at her little brother. He looks over to exchange a grin with her, but instead he frowns when he sees her shiver. “Hey, are you cold?”

Sansa wants to brush it off, but at that moment the wind picks up and she shudders in her seat. “Um—”

“Here.” Jon strips off his jumper to reveal a T-shirt and henley underneath. He’s quite warm enough as it is, and even if he wasn’t he’d still hand over his sweater for her. He can think of a few better ways to get her warm, but none of them are terribly appropriate for the setting, so. Jumper it is.

“Thank you,” Sansa says, not bothering to disguise her gratitude with any protests. She’s far too cold for that. She catches the tail-end of Brienne’s grin as she pulls the jumper over her head, but soon she’s too overwhelmed by Jon’s scent—mint and pine and the faintest hint of smoke—on the fabric to care what her esteemed colleague thinks of her at the moment.

Jon smiles and straightens his glasses. His hair’s sticking up in the back and Sansa wants to run her fingers through it. But she certainly can’t do that—not here and probably not ever—so she smooths her own hair and clears her throat.

For a few minutes, their attention is back on the game, or so they would have the other think. It’s riveting enough, as the Wild Things had taken to yelling as they race up and down the field, spurred on by their coach and without any idea or care for who had the ball in their possession. Tormund claps his large hands together, shouting encouragements as his team runs directionless laps around the pitch.

“Keep it up! Show me that stamina! Good effort, lads, good effort! Oi, watch the hands, you’re meant to _kick_ the ball—go on, go after it! Use your teeth—DON’T use your teeth!” Tormund rectifies when the referee shoots him an exasperated look. “No teeth, lads, or it’s the bench for ya!”

Rickon body-slams one of his own teammates and is benched again. On his way to his designated seat, he and Tormund exchange another war cry, pounding their chests as they do so.

Suffice it to say, it’s easy for Jon and Sansa to act as though their focus is all for the game, easy to pretend that they’re not distracted by each other. Brienne, for her part, might only be looking out of the corner of her eye, but she catches their hurried glances at one another when they don’t think the other is looking.

She sighs, shakes her head, and goes back to her tablet, thinking that next weekend really can’t come soon enough.

Sansa’s phone dings. She checks it, makes a strangled sound, and shoves it back into her bag with more force than is necessary. Jon, of course, is watching her, but he doesn’t have to wait long for an explanation.

“Well while we’re on the subject of exes, that was Harry. _Again_ ,” she tells him. She rolls her eyes, but the pounding of her annoyed heart gives her away. “I don’t think he’s ever been dumped before, he doesn’t know what’s going on. I just don’t feel particularly obligated to explain it to him more than I _already have_.”

She kicks her bag for emphasis. “I should have listened to my parents on that one. They hated him. Mum tried to be supportive but every time I talked about him she looked like she’d just swallowed sour milk. They only met him the once, but it was enough for Dad to sit me down and have a long talk about how Harry wasn’t the man for me. He always said that about my boyfriends. ‘Not that one.’ He wasn’t wrong, clearly.”

Jon almost asks what Catelyn and Ned Stark would have deemed right for their daughter. He could use all the help he can get, after all, but Sansa’s already shaking her head at her outburst. She doesn’t want to talk about her parents, that much Jon has been able to ascertain, and she’s not happy with herself now that she’s broken that unsaid rule. So he won’t push her further, not when she turns her smile his way.

“If it’s not obvious, none of my relationships have ended amicably,” she finishes, then invites him to continue on his own self-reflection. “So what about you? What’s your story, are you still on good terms with Ygritte?”

Willing to go along with her change of subject, Jon shakes his head. “I’m not on any terms with Ygritte. It was a clean break. We both thought it would be for the best. Things had been too intense but they were never going anywhere. We couldn’t be friends and we were never going to be anything more than what we were. I guess…” 

He pauses, unsure of how far to go, but he’s already in so deep that he might as well keep at it. “At the end of it, there were just other things we cared about more than we did each other.”

“God, you’ve got a good handle on it, though, don’t you?” Sansa almost lets a wistful sigh escape, but she decides it would be too ridiculous, and instead distracts herself by scratching her nose. “Wish I was there.”

“You will be,” Jon assures her, even though he doesn’t have the slightest idea, really. If you’d asked him two years ago, he wouldn’t have been so confident in his own ability to move on. Now, though… “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it. Had to convince myself that it was the right thing, and that I can’t do the wrong thing again. The next time I’m, you know…”

He trails off. What was he planning to say? _The next time I’m in love?_ He can’t say that to her, can he? At the very least, he probably shouldn’t. He’s barely known her a month, he can’t say shit like that after a _month_. She’ll think he’s Lifetime-movie stalker insane.

“I dunno,” he decides, because that’s always a foolproof way to further conversation. “I’m not interested in casual. I haven’t even been on a date in two years.”

_Jesus, man, why don’t you just propose to her and have done with it?_

Brienne lifts her eyebrows again, but neither of them notice. Meanwhile, Sansa whistles, impressed. “I didn’t know men were capable of that.”

He grins. “I do have _feelings_ , you know.”

“I’m sorry, that was the heteronormative patriarchy talking. Oh—” Sansa catches Jon’s crooked smile and raised brows— “I was a gender studies major.”

“I was just about to ask.”

Sansa’s laugh meets the sound of the game’s end whistle, short and shrill and breaking on the breeze. The Wild Things, as energized as they were an hour ago, disperse, and Sansa wastes no time in jumping from her chair and meeting Rickon on the sidelines. Jon alights from his own seat on the bleachers to follow, hanging behind just a bit while Sansa scoops up her brother, princess-style, and spins around until he giggle-shouts for her to stop.

“Mr. Snow!” Rickon reaches out and tugs at the front of Jon’s shirt, yanking him forward until he’s stepping on Sansa’s toes and could count the freckles on her nose if he wanted to (there are eleven). “Hi! Did you see me play? Coach Torman—”

“Tormund,” Sansa corrects him.

“Coach Tormoond,” Rickon continues, “says I did good, do you think so?”

“You were benched twice,” Sansa reminds him while Jon looks on with an encouraging, if a bit confused as to what to say, smile.

“NO MERCY!” Rickon shouts at his sister, then turns back to Jon expectantly. “Do you want to come over, Mr. Snow? Sansa’s making pizza from itch.”

“From _scratch_ ,” Sansa corrects him again. She rocks him back and forth in her arms. “I’m making pizza from _scratch_ , I’m not making anything from ‘itch,’ that sounds disgusting. 

“You _are_ welcome to come, though,” she adds, this time to Jon. “I still owe you dinner for fixing the air-con, remember? And how can you say no to this face?”

She squeezes Rickon’s cheeks together, making him giggle again, but it’s not as though Jon could have said no to _her_ face, either. Not when that tentative smile is playing on the corners of her lips. Not when she’s bouncing her little brother in her arms like he weighs nothing at all. Not when his jumper is hanging near to the hem of her skirt, and her bare legs look like they could use some warming up—

_PULL. IT. TOGETHER. MAN._

“Sure,” Jon says, a tad too loudly in his attempts to quiet his malfunctioning brain. He doesn’t know that he should be accepting the invitation, but he _wants_ to, so he throws his last shred of uncertainty to the wind and accepts. “Yeah, I’d love to. Let me just—I told Tormund I’d help him pack up after the game. I’ll meet you at yours in a bit, then?”

Sansa nods, and Jon meets her smile like some stupid, giddy teenager. He ruffles Rickon’s hair, bids another temporary goodbye, and heads off across the pitch. Sansa watches him go, none-too-inconspicuously, as evidenced by the knowing grins Rickon and Brienne share between them.

“What?” Sansa demands when she catches them in the act. “What are you two smiling about?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Brienne says, her tone uncharacteristically lofty when she continues. “Only, well, Margaery sent me a link to his Facebook last week. He’s even more handsome in person, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“What d’you mean—Margaery _sent you a link_?” Sansa nearly stamps her foot while Rickon cackles like he’s in the midst of a sugar rush. _“Why?”_

“I wouldn’t presume to know,” Brienne says. She’s full of shit, Sansa knows that much, but Brienne doesn’t give the younger woman a chance to call her on it. She simply kisses Sansa’s cheek while she splutters some more. “Have a lovely weekend. I’ll see you Monday.”

Across the field, Jon is faring no better as his friend insists on taking the mickey out of him, too.

“So,” Tormund begins as he zips up the third and final duffel bag full of equipment. “That your girl, Snow? The one you were chatting up during the game?”

“I haven’t got a girl at all,” Jon staunchly informs him, never mind the fluttering of his stupid, no-good heart. “And I certainly haven’t got Sansa.”

Tormund snorts, and keeps talking as though Jon hadn’t just told such a blatant lie. “She’s pretty. Prettier than you told me she was—”

“Oi—” Jon looks around, only to see Sansa and Rickon holding hands on the way to the car, much too far off to have heard anything being said between the two men— “shut up, will you?”

“What,” Tormund laughs, “you can ogle her tits but you can’t tell her she’s pretty?”

“I was _not_ —I don’t _ogle_.”

His laugh turns to a full-on guffaw, complete with thigh-slapping. “I could see you clear across the field. That why you gave her your sweater, is it?” he guesses with a toothy, knowing grin. “So you might talk to her face instead?”

“I didn’t—I wouldn’t—I’m really offended, man,” Jon declares with hardly any conviction to speak of. He knows quite well that he’d been ogling Sansa, thanks, but that doesn’t mean it’s any of Tormund’s business. The man does a fair amount of ogling himself, doesn’t he? It’s not a _crime_. “I don’t even have time to tell you how wrong you are, I’ve got to go.”

“Where you goin’?”

“Well I’m not going to have dinner at Sansa’s, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Tormund only shoulders the duffel bags on his own, chuckle still alive in his voice when he says, “All right, just make sure to put in a good word for me with her blonde friend, would ya?”

Jon is tempted to flip him off, but he only snorts out his own laugh. After all Tormund’s just put him through, and now the guy wants Jon to put in a good word for him? 

_Absolutely not_ , he resolves, and heads to his car, his friend’s mirth still ringing in his ears.

* * *

When he arrives at Sansa’s, she’s setting the table while Rickon’s splashing in the bath, the kitchen stereo blaring so loudly that Jon can hear it from the driveway. And when he steps into the open screen door, he can hear Sansa singing along, too, nearly loud enough to drown out the dulcet tones of— 

_Yup_ , Jon thinks as he makes his way to the kitchen. _That’s Meatloaf._

He leans in the open doorway, watching while Sansa fiddles with the oven and swings her hips comically but nevertheless enticingly to the beat of the music. Down the hall, Rickon can be heard singing along, too. Jon’s not sure how a five-year-old managed to master the lyrics of “I Would Do Anything for Love,” but then, Sansa hasn’t failed to surprise him yet, so he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Rickon’s expertise is her doing.

Jon does, however, manage to surprise _her_ when she turns around, catches sight of him, and promptly screams.

 _“God—”_ Sansa turns the stereo down a couple of notches so that Jon can hear her nervous laughter. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Thirty seconds at most,” Jon assures her. Less than, more likely, but time always seems to stop when he’s with her, so how would he know? _Get a grip get a grip get a grip—_ “Nice moves, by the way. How much do I owe you?”

Sansa swats him with a dish towel. “Keep making jokes like that and I’ll have Rickon asking me what a kink is all over again.”

“Ah… right.” Declaring peace, Jon offers a sheepish smile and the bag he’d brought along. “Sparkling grape juice for Rickon, wine for—you.”

He almost says _for us_ , but the word dies on the tip of his tongue, suffocated by intimacy and expectation. _Us_ is too much, isn’t it? he wonders, a bit wildly. He knows he’s being paranoid—he’s always like this around Sansa—but he’d prefer to call it cautious. He doesn’t want to scare her off, and he’s got no idea where she wants this to go or how he’s supposed to get them there.

The sound of Sansa’s voice tempers his rapid heartbeat, despite the fact that she’s being incorrigible again. 

“You didn’t have to bring anything,” she tells him, but takes the proffered bag all the same. “I told you, I owe you dinner, at least. Not just for the air-con, either, but… Well.”

She tucks her hair behind her ears and licks her lips, and—gods be good, but Jon nearly leans in. He snaps back to his senses when her eyes meet his again. 

“You’ve really been there for me when you didn’t have to be. The last thing you’ve got to do is bring a hostess gift when you come over.”

“Sansa.” This time he does lean in, one hand braced on the counter’s edge and the other taking her wrist. Her pulse jumps beneath his touch and suddenly he’s bold and brave. “It’s not a chore to spend time with you. I _like_ spending time with you.”

His hand slips from her wrist to grasp her fingers, the way he does every evening they spend together. “You know that, don’t you?”

She stares at their clasped hands, unsure of what to say. Why does he do this to her? He takes her hand and suddenly her heart’s his, too. What sort of totally unromantic, complete _bullshit_ —god, she can’t think straight when he’s doing that thing with his thumb across her knuckles. When he’s looking at her like she should reconsider her whole “totally unromantic” perception of their relationship. When he’s leaning into her and she can’t smell the oven anymore, it’s only mint and pine and a wisp of smoke—

“I’ve got your jumper,” she blurts out of nowhere, startling them both.

Jon leans back, hand still around hers, but he recovers with a smile and says, “Keep it. It looks better on you, anyway.”

 _Oh, shit..._ She’s doomed.

But she’s saved the trouble of blurting out more nonsense, as Rickon chooses that moment to stroll into the kitchen in a plush blue robe, slippers, and a bubble pipe stuck between his teeth. He greets them with a “Good evening” and a healthy stream of bubbles, and asks if dinner’s ready yet. 

Jon chances another glance at Sansa, tries to make it meaningful without knowing exactly what he wants to relay within that meaning, then releases her hand to shake Rickon’s outstretched one.

“Mr. Snow,” Rickon says in a purposely affected accent, “how nice of you to join us tonight.”

“Oh my god,” Sansa mutters. She tries to hide her smile, but the tension has begun to uncoil from her shoulders so she can’t quite help it.

From the moment she’d met Jon in his classroom, Sansa had known she was in danger of falling hard and fast; it’s sort of her style. But even so, this time is… different, she thinks during dinner. She can’t explain how, exactly, only that it’s different in a way that makes her heart feel more full, more content, than it has in months—maybe even years?

She can’t pinpoint that, either. But she watches Jon with Rickon, watches him smile and laugh and listen intently, and she sees the way Rickon’s eyes light up when the two of them are in the thick of it. And _this_ , she thinks when Jon looks at her from across the table and his foot nudges hers under it, this feels so _right_ that she almost wants to cut and run for fear that she’ll find a way to screw it up. Because _right_ just doesn’t happen for her. It never has. But then Jon Snow shows up, and suddenly it feels like right’s just been waiting for her some fifteen minutes from her parents’ house.

Rickon’s nearly scarfed down a whole pizza by himself, and as such he’s about to fall into a food coma when he broaches the subject neither Jon nor Sansa would admit they’d thought about themselves. He yawns, blows on his bubble pipe again, and takes the plunge.

“Do you want to have a sleepover, Mr. Snow?” he asks. Jon chokes on his drink and Sansa nearly shatters the wine glass in her hand, but Rickon remains clueless and undeterred. “We only have two bedrooms because the other one is Sansa’s office now, but you could sleep over in Sansa’s bed. She has lots of room. Sometimes I sleep there too but you can sleep there tonight.”

“And that’s bedtime for you!” Sansa all but exclaims, cheeks aflame while Jon continues to cough. She lets her hair fall around her face to hide her embarrassment while she hoists Rickon from his chair. “Are you sure you’ve been drinking sparkling grape juice, or did you dip into my wine, bucko?”

Rickon wrinkles his nose as he wrestles free of Sansa’s hold. “Can Mr. Snow tuck me in?”

“Sure I can,” Jon says when Sansa slants a questioning look his way. He’s finally finished choking, so he pushes back from the table and makes to follow Rickon down the hall, but he pauses to touch Sansa’s elbow. 

“Do you want me to stay? Not, erm, not the whole night,” he’s quick to add, as it’s the gentlemanly thing to do, his libido be damned. “Maybe an hour or…?”

“Yeah.” Sansa nods, her lips pressed together in a still-embarrassed smile. “Yeah, I’ll just clean this up while you’re with him and then we can, um, talk, yeah?”

 _Yeah_ , Jon thinks while his gaze falls to her lips and his heart skips. _Talk_.

He tries not to think about it. He’s got a five-year-old to tuck in, and then he can think about whether or not he should make a move on the five-year-old’s legal guardian. _Compartmentalize, Snow_ , he instructs himself as he heads to Rickon’s room. _It’s the only way you’re going to calm the hell down for like ten minutes._

“Mr. Snow,” Rickon greets Jon when he walks in the room. He’s already in bed, propped up on a pile of pillows, hands folded on the blanket in front of him. “Come in. Sit. We should talk.”

Wary of such a serious tone, Jon sits gingerly on the edge of the bed, waiting for Rickon to drop whatever ball he’s got in his court. Certainly it must be _something_ , if his little furrowed brow is any indication. He looks remarkably like Sansa like this, and Jon has seen that look on her face more times than he’d care to when she could be smiling instead.

There’s only a beat of silence before Rickon sighs, loud and long and heavy, and says, “Everyone thinks Sansa’s lonely. That’s what Auntie Margaery says. She said it to Sansa. Miss Brienne said it to Arya on the phone, too. That’s almost everyone.”

“Is it now?” Jon pinches a loose thread in Rickon’s quilt, as if tugging at something outside of himself will quell the desperation in his gut. Because, _god_ , does he want Sansa; he wants to fill up her lonely for more than a couple of hours every other night. “Well she’s got you, hasn’t she?”

“It’s not the same.” Rickon shakes his head. “ _I_ think she’s lonely, too. She needs a grown-up. Like how Mum and Daddy were married. She talks to Arya and Auntie Margaery on the phone a lot but she can’t talk to them forever and ever, so Sansa’s all by herself.”

He stops to sniffle. There’s a creak in the hall, and Jon looks up just in time to see a flash of red. But Rickon doesn’t notice; he blinks a few times and then pushes through whatever sadness he’s harboring to lay it all on the table for Jon the way no one else can. Even Rickon knows this much, that someone should know how sad Sansa really is, and maybe they could do something about it when he can’t.

“She cries a lot. I don’t ask her about Mum and Daddy anymore because it makes her sad,” Rickon confesses. “I don’t want to make her sad. But she still cries at bedtime.”

There’s another creak in the hall, followed by another and one after that as Sansa excuses herself as quickly and quietly as she can. Jon hears the front door open and close, but he doesn’t leave to follow her just yet. Rickon’s looking at him with wide, imploring bright eyes that have him rooted to the spot.

“You like Sansa, right, Mr. Snow?” he wants to know. “Everyone thinks so. Except for Sansa. She doesn’t know.”

Jon swallows the nervous lump in his throat, half-wishing Sansa was still in the house so she might hear it when he tells Rickon, “Yeah. Yeah, I like her. Very much. Is that okay?”

“Yeah.” Rickon yawns, but a smile replaces it as he settles back upon his pillows. “‘S long as you tell her.” 

* * *

Jon finds Sansa on the front porch.

The sky is a dark, dusky purple, and she’s lit up by the yellow outdoor lights that cast her hair in copper and shadow. She’s on the porch swing, elbows on her knees and face in her hands, a barely-touched glass of wine on the white wicker table in front of her. As soon as he steps outside, Jon sees the shudder in her shoulders and he hears one too many steadying breaths that don’t steady her at all.

Without preamble—because what can he say when she’s crying on her porch and the house is quiet?—he sits beside her and puts a hand on her shoulder, runs it down her arm and back up to her elbow.

“I guess Rickon got his eavesdropping habit from you?” he asks, teasing and tender all at once.

Sansa chokes out a laugh, but when she speaks she sounds furious with herself.

“He’s _five_. God damn it. He’s five years old and he’s trying to take care of _me_.” She hiccups and swipes at the tears on her face. “I’m supposed to be the parent here, but I can’t stop crying for one bloody night. Look at me.”

She gestures at her over-bright, bloodshot eyes, her spine straightening enough so that Jon can put his arm around her more fully. It feels nice, it feels right, and after what she’s put her baby brother through, she doesn’t deserve it. She’d offered to take him so he could keep his home, find some stability and normalcy following their parents’ death, and all she’d done was make him feel like he couldn’t talk to her, like he had to take care of her.

“How is he supposed to rely on me when I can’t even pull it together enough for a _five-year-old_ to think I’m okay?” Sansa whispers, voice and resolve broken all in one. Fresh tears spill and it feels like they’re never going to stop.

“It’s alright.” Jon’s voice is low in her ear, his breath warm but it sends a shiver through her when it hits her skin. His hands continue their ministrations down her arms, pulling her close to his side. “It’s alright, Sansa. I’ve got you.”

He wants to make her forget—about her grief and the tear tracks on her cheeks, about how she’ll be a mum this weekend and then a full-time professional on Monday, about the incessant dinging of her phone while her lousy ex-boyfriend tries to make amends. He wants to make her forget about everything she’s never wanted, about everything on her shoulders, and he wants her to think about him and how good he wants to make her feel. Not just tonight, but for as long as she’ll keep him around.

He’d admitted to Rickon that he liked her. For god’s sake, he’d been beating himself over the head with the fact ever since he met her. Tormund knows it, and apparently Sansa’s friends and family—some of whom Jon hasn’t even _met_ —know it, too. Sam knows, which means Gilly and Pyp and Grenn know. At this point Jon would be more surprised if someone _didn’t_ know it.

But they all do—all of them, that is, but the one person who _should_ know. All of them but the one person who _needs_ to know it. All of them but Sansa.

And here he is, arms around her in the dark while she cries into his shirt collar, and he’s too chicken-shit to tell her? What’s the point of any of this if she doesn’t know? If he can’t give her what they both want, and all because he’s too afraid to do something about it?

God, and she’s so warm. She’s so fucking warm and soft and she smells like citrus and cinnamon and how is he supposed to _not want_ her? Not wanting her had never even factored in.

There’s a chill in the air, but it sparks with heat when his hands stray and Sansa’s follow; hers are chapped from dish soap and Jon wants them braced on his bare chest. He strokes long, soothing lines down her arms, in the curve of her waist and onto her hips, until one of his hands curls into a fist on her thigh, clutching the cotton of her skirt. Her breath is coming shallow and his ragged against the shell of her ear. She’s moving into his touch and he wants to touch her all the more.

“Sansa…” His lips ghost against her cheek, his fingers twitch against her leg, trailing slowly beneath the hem of her sundress. He dips his head so his mouth grazes the slope of her neck. “Forget about everything else. Just for right now. Sansa, let me make you feel good—”

Neither of them know who leans in first or last, but the words have barely made it past Jon’s lips when they’re meeting Sansa’s.

She tastes sweet and lush and rich when her tongue slides against his, when her breath hitches into his mouth and he groans in the most pathetic little whimper, but he’s putty in her hands and he doesn’t care. His hand twists into her hair and he can’t care about anything else at all—nothing but her mouth moving under his, her hair streaming over his knuckles, her skin warming beneath the touch of his fingertips on her thigh.

One of her hands slips beneath the neck of his shirt to trace his collarbone, the other gripping his henley at the waist. Her nails bite through the fabric and into his skin, and he arches against her in eager response. He kisses her harder, hungrily, pulls her hair—too hard, he thinks in a flash of clarity, of worry, but then her moan shudders against his tongue and she pinches his skin again.

Emboldened by her attentions, her enthusiasm, Jon’s hand inches higher on her thigh. His palm smooths over her skin, teasing her knee and sweeping up under her skirt again. Whether the heat is emanating from her or him, he doesn’t know, but he feels on fire in the middle of this early autumn dusk. 

She’d walked into his life and struck a match that just doesn’t burn out, and now he’s kissing her neck, tasting the sweet and salty tang of her skin, skin he wants to map out with his touch and his tongue—every curve, dip, and crevice, every freckle and every scar, he wants to memorize them all and watch her come alive because she deserves _nothing less_ than someone who would remember every part of her.

“Sansa…” He whispers her name, and it catches on the space between their lips. He tastes the corner of her mouth once more, and his thumb sweeps the apex of her thighs under her dress, where he’s made her warm, and he can make her wet if she lets him. “Sansa, I want to—”

She pulls back abruptly, far enough that his questing hand falls to her knee, but not far enough that he’s released her completely. Her lips are swollen when she says on a ragged breath, “We can’t.”

“Okay,” Jon relents immediately. His heart’s in his throat, then in his stomach and then it’s tumbling off his tongue. “Okay. Jesus, I’m sorry—”

“No, it’s not that,” Sansa is quick to assure him. He’d tried to let her go, to give her the space he thinks she wants, but she holds fast to his shirtfront and pulls him back into her. She kisses him again, chaste but clinging. “I—I want to, it’s just—Rickon. He’s asleep just inside the house and I can’t—”

 _Oh._ Jon’s heart settles once more. _Oh, thank fucking god—_

“You’re right. We can—another time.” He rests his forehead against hers, tries to catch his breath but he can’t, not when he’s touching her and he’s still so _full_ of her. Her scent, her hands, the way that her flavor tingles, lingers on his taste buds. “Can I see you again?”

“Mhmm.” Sansa’s gaze flicks to the house, but all’s well and quiet. Even so, things can change in a moment. She is all too familiar with the way _well and quiet_ can so quickly turn mad and hectic. “I only—I don’t know when.”

“That’s alright.” Now that he knows the way that she feels, Jon can’t help but touch her; now that he knows, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to stop, nor is he going to try. He presses another kiss to her cheek. “We’ll figure it out. I promise. It doesn’t have to be right away. I know this is… complicated.”

She smiles. “You could say that.”

He tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and takes his time to trace the lobe. “Worth it, though.”

“You could say that, too.” Sansa ducks her head, laughing when Jon hits her with that goofy schoolboy grin of his. Her eyes are still bright and red-rimmed, and he looks at her like he’s over-the-moon, anyway. How had she ever convinced herself that a little romance wasn’t on the horizon? 

Her mind’s too fuzzy to riddle that one at the moment, and for once that’s just fine with her. “I feel like an idiot.”

“Well you certainly don’t kiss like one.”

“Hmmm…” Sansa feigns a thought, then pops her lips and grins. Her hands move over his shoulders and into his hair. Maybe they can’t do more tonight, but there’s nothing stopping her from at least kissing him senseless on her front porch. “You might have miscalculated.”

“Might I have?” Jon cocks an eyebrow, and leans back in like Sansa’s the force to his magnet. _And she sure the hell is._ His hands sweep her waist and tug her close. “Suppose I should try again, then. Just to be sure.”

Sansa laughs again. This time, when Jon kisses her, there are no tears; this time, he can taste her smile.


	5. do what you will with me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: guys. i am SO SORRY for the wait on this chapter. the short explanation is that, when i intended to update, MONTHS AGO, i just couldn’t seem to get the feel for it. it was so frustrating and discouraging, and eventually it got the better of me so i set this project aside for awhile. BUT NOW IT’S BACK, and—while tbh i still don’t know how i feel about this chapter personally—i hope it was worth the wait!

Sansa is just about to leave to collect Rickon from school when he bursts through the front door, with Brienne and Margaery hot on his heels.

“Surprise!” he shouts, sweeping an arm towards Margaery, who immediately tackles a beaming Sansa into a bear hug.

“A brilliant one!” Sansa laughs. She returns her friend’s embrace just as vigorously as it had been given. She’s used to the pressure on her shoulders by now, but it’s alleviated tenfold in Margaery’s hug. “I didn’t even know you were back in town! I thought you’d still be haggling with Sunspear?”

Margaery laughs and squeezes her harder. “Are you kidding? The Dornish love me, family feuds be damned.”

 _“Oooooh,”_ Rickon says, looking at Brienne as though he expects her to react unfavorably, “Auntie Margaery said a bad word.”

“Sorry, love.” She ruffles the boy’s hair as he sprints past them, presumably to dump his backpack and turn on the telly before Sansa can ask about his weekend assignments. Before she can do just that, Margaery takes her by the upper arms and tells her, “You look marvelous. Much better than the last time we Skyped. I assume you bathed today?”

“I managed a shower this morning, yeah.”

“You could look better, though.” Margaery clicks her tongue disapprovingly, clearly displeased in spite of Sansa’s hygienic success. “You must not have gotten yourself an orgasm since the last time we talked.”

Margaery turns to the third woman with something like a pout. “Why doesn’t she ever _listen_ to me, Brienne?”

“I couldn’t say,” Brienne remarks dryly while Sansa looks on, gaping at the pair of them. She thinks she might very well prefer their company separately, if they’re only going to tease her relentlessly when they’re all together like this.

“No matter.” Margaery claps her hands together, her smile brisk as the autumn afternoon that awaits them. She hits Sansa with that old Tyrell steel and declares “We’re going out,” before promptly ushering her towards the bathroom.

“Oh, Marg, I can’t,” Sansa insists, even as she allows her friend to push her onto the closed toilet seat and fuss with her hair. “I’ve got Rickon—”

“Not this weekend, you don’t,” Brienne calls as she strolls to the kitchen to tidy up the dishes. “He’s staying with me.”

“We’re going to see wrestling!” Rickon shouts from down the hall.

Sansa opens her mouth to protest, but Margaery is too quick for her. She sticks Sansa’s toothbrush past her parted lips and holds up a reprimanding finger.

“Don’t bother arguing. We’ve planned this far too perfectly to let you weasel yourself out of it, you hear?” Margaery’s voice is stern, but there’s a mischievous glint in her eye when she continues. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint your Mr. Snow, now, would we?”

Sansa is quite glad of her toothbrush now; it gives her something to do as she scrambles to catch up with her friend’s accelerated thought process. She hadn’t seen Jon in almost a week, not since Rickon’s peewee match, dinner, and the couple hours’ worth of snogging they’d done on her front porch afterwards. She’d been so slammed with work that she’d had to charge Osha with getting Rickon to and from school, not to mention all the cooking and cleaning that Sansa was also forced to neglect all week. Osha hadn’t minded in the slightest, but Sansa had nevertheless felt wretched over it, and worse still that she hadn’t gotten to see Jon.

He had such a way with her—calming her down, soothing her, and it was the worst sort of torture to only be able to exchange a few texts in the middle of the night before she climbed into bed and wished he was there with her. That’s a dangerous thought, she knows—to want him so much and so consistently, and all in such a short stretch of time. Her heart’s got its own head these days, and it’s not paying her fears any mind. Sansa’s not sure if this is a good thing or bad.

It won’t do to examine it now, though, so she spits out her toothpaste, rinses her mouth, and rounds on Margaery. “What are you up to, Margaery Anne?” she wants to know. “What’s Jon got to do with your obvious insanity?”

Unperturbed by her friend’s suspicions, Margaery merely pushes her back onto the toilet so that she’s rather uncomfortably straddling it this time, allowing Margaery better access to her hair. “He was quite disappointed already,” she says conversationally. “I’m sure he was expecting to see you this afternoon, before Brienne and I barged in to pick up Rickon instead. I’ve never seen a man so crestfallen to clap eyes on me, except perhaps that time I walked in on Loras and Renly, but they were more irritated than disappointed, really.

“Anyway,” Margaery brushes this off as easily as she brushes out Sansa’s careless ponytail. “I assured your Mr. Snow not to fret, because he’ll be seeing you tonight.”

“Margaery—”

“Oh, please, don’t thank me.” Her laugh is airy and musical. “As your best friend, it’s my duty to wingwoman for you. It was what I was put on this earth to do.”

“I don’t—” Sansa tries again, to no avail.

“You know Gilly, don’t you? Cute little intern at the office? Of course you do,” Margaery continues before Sansa can so much as confirm or deny. “Well, she just so happens to be engaged to Mr. Jon Snow’s BFF. When I told her about you, she very graciously extended an invitation to her engagement party tonight. She said it’s about time Jon’s got his eye on someone—oi, quit squirming so much.”

But Sansa’s already grabbed her phone from the bathroom counter, where she’d left it playing Spotify during her shower. She’d been too focused on work to check it most of the day, and so she finds three unread texts from Jon:

**Your friend seems to think that you’re my date tonight?**

**Not that I mind, obviously. She’s actually doing me a favor. I wanted to ask you out to Sam and Gilly’s party, but I assumed you were working. I didn’t want to push.**

**Was that prickish of me?**

Sansa’s inner teenager squeals in delight— _he wants to ask you out!_ —and however embarrassing her adolescent swooning is, she can't help her grin as she taps out a reply:

_Not at all. I’d actually planned on working. Maybe catching up on some sleep. But Marg is… relentless._

Jon answers immediately, as though he’d been waiting for her response. Her heart does a little flip.

**I noticed. She said she’d sack you if you refused to come out. I wouldn’t want you to lose your job. ;)**

_Did you just wink at me?_

**I’m trying to flirt with you. Is it working, or do I have to go another week without seeing you?**

_Perish the thought. Margaery’s already doing my hair._

**Good. Tell her to leave it down.**

“He can’t tell me what to do,” Margaery huffs when Sansa shows her the text. But she complies and plugs in the curling iron. “The things I do for your sex life… Does Mr. Snow have any other preferences he’d like to share, or does he trust that I know what I’m doing?”

_Margaery doesn’t appreciate your demands, but she’d begrudgingly like to know if you have more._

**Oh, well, if she insists… I’d like her to convince you to wear the shortest dress you own. Sans tights. I want to see as much indecently bare leg as is permissible by law.**

_It’s cold out!_

**I’ve got warm hands.**

_Are you trying to flirt with me again?_

**No, this time I’m just propositioning you.**

Margaery lifts an eyebrow as she reads the exchange over Sansa’s shoulder. “Saucy, isn’t he?”

“Do you disapprove?”

“Not at all,” Margaery says. She tests the heat on the curling iron and finds it perfect. “Saucy’s just what you need. I just didn’t expect it from someone who wears a sweater vest.”

“He’s not normally so… forward,” Sansa decides, a bemused smile on her face as she rereads their conversation. “I wonder what’s gotten into him.”

Somehow Margaery manages to pass her snort off as a class act. She twists Sansa’s hair around the curling iron and launches into an explanation.

“He hasn’t seen you in a week. The boy’s mad for you,” she says, as though it’s obvious. Indeed, Margaery’s never even seen the two of them together and already she knows they’re gone on each other. “Desperate, even. You snogged him—gave him a taste of the Sansa magic, if you will—bravo, by the way, if I haven’t already said that several times—and then deprived him of it for days on end. You’ve got him _sprung_.”

“Yeah.” Rickon wanders into the bathroom then, a cup of rainbow sorbet in hand. “Like a Slinky.”

“ _Just_ like a Slinky,” Margaery agrees, then leans down to take the plastic spoonful of sorbet Rickon offers her.

Sansa shifts in her seat as much as Margaery will allow. She’d like to believe them—really, she hasn’t got a reason _not_ to, but all the same… “I’m sure that’s not true.” _You’re too cautious for your own good_ , Sansa chastises herself, but her friend is easier on her.

“Give yourself a little credit, my sweet peach. He fancies the pants off you.”

Rickon’s brow scrunches as he points at his sister’s skirt. “But Sansa’s wearing a dress.”

Margaery doesn’t miss a beat: “That’s because Mr. Snow fancied the pants right off her.”

“Oh.” Rickon sucks on his spoon thoughtfully, then pops it out of his mouth and asks, “Auntie Margaery, is that love?”

“Absolutely it is,” Margaery confirms, and pinches Sansa when she makes a sound of disagreement. She kisses the top of her head to soothe her rebuke. “It _really_ is.”

* * *

The Black Crow Bar is crowded on a Friday night, but it seems that everyone present knows everyone else. There is none of the bumping into strangers or losing friends in the multitudes of other, faceless patrons, as had been Sansa’s experience when living in the city. The lights aren’t dim, but glow softly against the gleaming wood paneling of the walls, floor, and bar; the music is lively, but not so loud that you can’t hear what the person next to you is saying.

At the moment, though, Sansa thinks it might do her well to be unable to hear what Margaery’s muttering in her ear.

“I swear to god, Sansa, if you don’t sit on his face tonight then I hereby terminate our friendship—”

“Nope.” Sansa claps a hand over her friend’s mouth just as she catches sight of Jon approaching them. “No. If you behave, I’ll pay your tab. If you don’t, I’m stealing your credit card and I’ll be halfway to sunny Barcelona before you even know what I’ve done.”

Margaery only smirks against her friend’s palm, and as soon as she drops it Margaery rounds on Jon. “Her hair is down and the dress almost got her a ticket for public indecency on the way over.” Margaery brandishes her hands in Sansa’s direction, as if she’s a model for the shopping network and Sansa is her prized showcase. “You’re welcome.”

Jon’s smile is wide, and he only blushes a little as his eyes rove over Sansa and he tells Margaery, “I think I owe you a drink.”

“Well, I’m not going to say no to that. Lead the way, Mr. Rogers,” Margaery invites, but then does so herself in pure Tyrell fashion.

At Jon’s raised brow, Sansa tells him, “It’s the cardigan.”

“What’s wrong with my cardigan?” Jon looks down to inspect it, then back at Sansa with a furrowed brow and a touch of worry in his eye. “Do you like my cardigan?”

“She’d like it better on the floor,” Margaery tosses over her shoulder.

“Oh.” Jon’s eyebrows go up again, this time in interest. He likes the sound of that, he thinks, and nudges Sansa as they head to the bar. “Which floor? Not the pub’s, I hope. Or are you a bit of an exhibitionist?”

Sansa nudges him back, and Jon takes the opportunity to interlace their fingers and hold them fast.

“Don’t get cheeky with me, Mr. Snow,” she admonishes. It’s easy to tease him; it makes her nerves settle, and it doesn’t feel like the world has stopped spinning under the weight of their relationship. “But I expect your cardigan would look best on the floor of my foyer.”

“The foyer, _really_?” When they reach the bar, Jon’s hands go to her waist and he pulls her in, nearly close enough to kiss the way they had on her front porch. “You’re going to make quick work of me, aren’t you?”

He leans in to press a kiss to her cheek and murmurs, “No need to rush. From what I’ve been told, we’ve got all weekend. If you want, that is.”

Jon’s gaze is earnest on hers. He’d meant what he said in his text: _I didn’t want to push_ , and he doesn’t want to push now, either. He can’t pretend he doesn’t want her—won’t play games with her by doing so—but this has always been about what Sansa wants, and Jon wants to be sure he knows what that is, even if they can only take it a little bit at a time.

Sansa toys with the buttons on his sweater. Truth be told, she really would like to see it on her floor—along with the rest of Jon’s clothes and her own, too. She’s nervous, yes, but she’d been a nervous wreck around Jon ever since she’d stepped into his classroom and her baby brother had nearly made her trod all over his toes. It’s not a bad sort of nervous, it’s just… Sansa shakes her head. She’s overthinking this. Brienne and Margaery had orchestrated this weekend precisely so Sansa wouldn’t do _just that_.

And no matter her initial reservations, she’s here now, isn’t she? She’s all dressed up and in Jon’s arms, and _god_ but does she want to kiss him… Especially after a week apart, after having his mouth and his hands and his whispers, and now he’s looking at her like she could make or break his heart with a single breath.

_Just like he could with mine._

She smiles at him— _thank god_ , he sighs inwardly—all wide and fond, when she replies. “Well I think I might have to take you home later, since you did promise to keep my poor legs warm.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Jon backs her up onto a barstool and runs his hands up her thighs. “Christ, you _are_ cold—”

“I told you it was cold out,” Sansa pouts, and he can’t resist the urge to trace her lips with his thumb. She’s so _soft_ and Jon just bets he could warm her up in more ways than one, and he’s just about to suggest as much when—

“Oi!” From the other side of the counter, Tormund reaches over and smacks Jon with a dish towel. “Quit feelin’ your girl up at my bar, Snow, or I’ll have to charge extra!”

This only makes Jon’s attentions on Sansa’s legs more fervent. “Charge for what? You’re not her pimp—not that you look like a prostitute,” Jon is quick to add when she scoffs at his words. Behind her, Margaery laughs loudly. “I only meant that, you know, _legally_ , Tormund hasn’t got a leg to stand on. I could feel you up as much as I like right in front of him and he really couldn’t do anything about it.”

Sansa laughs and bats his hands away, much to his displeasure (and, truthfully, much to her own as well). “Tormund, I think he could use another drink. He’s really slipping up on his flirtations.”

“Liquid courage,” Tormund agrees with a wink, and slides another bottle Jon’s way.

He takes it good-naturedly enough, but keeps his free hand on Sansa’s knee. It’s modest enough behavior that Tormund can’t think to take the mickey any longer, so he lets it slide. Instead, he tosses the towel over his shoulder, braces his large square palms on the bar, and asks Sansa, “So tell me, ginger to ginger… Your blonde friend seein’ anyone?”

The night carries on in a similar fashion, with Jon getting Sansa to himself for all of thirty seconds before one of his mates gets between them. If it’s not Tormund trying to get her to play wingman, it’s Pyp and Grenn and Edd trying to get her to play darts—which she does, and thoroughly trounces them all, so of course they demand several rounds of rematches. Sansa is rather more competitive than Jon had imagined, so the only way he manages to get her attention is by bringing her a fresh drink or via text. He does both gladly, and the latter does admittedly give him an especial thrill when she checks her phone and smirks as his friends holler about darts next to them.

**You look beautiful.**

_What, you can’t say that to my face?_

Jon grins at his phone. He leans over to nuzzle his nose against her ear, then whispers into it, “You look beautiful. But I’m only getting started.”

“That liquid courage seems to be doing the trick, doesn’t it?” Sansa notes approvingly. “You’re never this smooth.”

“Am I being smooth?” Jon’s arms slip around her waist. “I missed you this week, that’s all.”

Sansa hums when he rubs small circles into her lower back. “That’s what Margaery said.”

Jon’s brow furrows at her uncertain tone. “You didn’t believe her?”

“Well…” _Don’t overthink this, Sansa, remember._ She shrugs. “Margaery has a tendency to embellish, that’s all.”

Jon thinks it’s less about Margaery Tyrell’s flamboyant nature and more about Sansa’s own self-doubt, but now’s not the time or place to discuss that. But he can make her believe otherwise all the same. They can tackle the details later, but for right now the least he can do is make sure she has no more room for doubt where he’s concerned.

“Well do you believe me, then?” he asks.

Another smile. _There’s that, at least._ “That depends on what you’re telling me.”

“You’re beautiful—” Jon plants a kiss between her eyebrows— “and I missed you—” one on her cheek— “and I can’t stop thinking about you. And right now—” two fingers trail from her cheekbone, down her throat, to the sweetheart neckline of her dress— “I’m wondering how far this blush goes.”

“Are you?” Sansa teases, more boldly than she feels with the alcohol buzzing through her veins and Jon’s breath on her lips. Her gaze flicks to his mouth, where his tongue peeks out to moisten the dryness there, and she tells him, “I think you’d better kiss me now, Mr. Snow.”

“ _God_ , gladly,” Jon mutters. His lips have just barely brushed hers—parting and making him ache with the sweet sugary scent of what she’d been drinking—when one of his mates shouts that it’s Sansa’s turn at darts, and then Jon loses his patience with the lot of them.

His head pops up and, over the sound of Sansa’s giggles, he barks, “GOD, Edd, give me a damn minute!”

Of course, Jon has the worst friends in all the world, and they wouldn’t let him catch a break if his life depended on it. When Sansa kisses him on the cheek and whispers that she’ll be all his before he knows it, Jon makes a mental note to charge the rest of the night’s drinks to Edd’s tab. Better yet, to Grenn or Pyp’s, if they don’t quit smirking at him like that.

He finds more sympathy with Sam and Gilly, and—somewhat to his surprise—Margaery Tyrell. She just doesn’t seem the type prone to pity, but apparently she’s taken enough of a liking to him to let him in on a few little secrets.

“Sansa’s wild about you,” she tells him as they lean against the bar, watching as Sansa continues to mercilessly beat the boys at darts. “I know it might be hard to tell at times. I’ve been around for the ups and downs of all of her relationships, you know. It hasn’t been easy, so it’s not so easy now for her to be honest about what she wants. And it’s harder now, with Rickon to consider…”

Margaery trails for a moment, then shakes it off and caps it: “She’s scared, but I don’t think she’ll admit it’s her—more that she thinks she’ll scare you away.”

“She couldn’t if she tried,” Jon says without missing a beat, and his heart skips a few when Sansa smiles at him from across the pub. He takes a swig of his beer, then cocks his head toward Margaery to ask, “Any advice on what I should do about that, though?”

“Well.” Margaery smacks her lips together, then takes a thoughtful sip of her cosmo. “I’m not terribly good at putting things delicately, so let’s just say take her home and spend the weekend convincing her that you’re not going anywhere unless she’s coming, too. _Coming_ ,” she repeats for emphasis. “ _If_ you get my drift.”

“Um—” Jon sputters a bit. He clears his throat, but it does nothing to get his pulse back on track or to dispel the images that emerge, unbidden (but all-too-familiar), in his mind’s eye: Hands trailing down Sansa’s back, hers across his shoulders, his face buried in her neck and her breath harsh in his ear when his hands travel lower, and lower, and lower…

_Keep it together, you’re in public—not home alone with her yet._

“Yeah.” He clears his throat again when he realizes how dry it is at the mere thought of having Sansa all to himself tonight. He’s not fooling anybody, but Margaery thankfully doesn’t mention it. “Yeah, I—uh, I get your drift.”

Sansa tosses him another smile, mid-laugh at something Pyp’s said, and Jon has to finish off his beer to steady himself. _Do I ever._

The evening doesn’t get easier from there. Although the lads finally admit defeat to Sansa’s continuous victories at darts, Gilly and Margaery whisk her off for shots and, to Jon’s estimate, several _thousand_ trips to the ladies’ room. Sam, of all people, takes one such trip as an opportunity to stoke Jon’s anxieties.

“You know they’re talking about us in there, right?” Sam says, so soberly it’s as though he’s joined them before and as such, has first-hand experience on the matter. “One of us must have done something stupid, and now they’ve got to go discuss it in private.”

Jon chokes on his drink, wracking his brain as to what stupid thing he possibly could have done this time (although could anything really be worse than the “kink” incident? He certainly doesn’t think so). Next to him, Sam’s brother Dickon frowns slightly.

“Is that why girls go to the bathroom together?”

Sam nods. “I read it on a women’s blog.”

“What’re you creeping on women’s blogs for?”

“Gilly and I were browsing for do-it-yourself table setting ideas, and it all sort of…” Sam gestures uselessly, shrugs, and takes another drink. “Spiraled from there.”

Neither Dickon nor Jon feel the need—much less the desire—to probe for further information. Jon’s still wondering if he’d done something stupid as the girls emerge from the loo at the back of the pub, and Dickon elbows him.

“So.” He grins and jerks his head in Sansa’s direction as she makes her way over to them. “Sam filled me in on the turning tides of your love life. That the girlfriend?”

Jon’s heart thrums almost painfully at the notion. (If this keeps up, he’s sure he’ll have to go to the doctor’s for heart palpitations sooner rather than later.) _Is she?_ he wonders, but decides it’s best to be honest without speaking for her, so keeping that in mind he answers Dickon as best he can.

“I’d like her to be,” he confesses. “So you keep away from her. In fact, keep away from me, too—” Jon shoves his shoulder amicably, but still manages to put some distance between them as Sansa reaches the group. “Makin’ me look like a damn hobbit by comparison.”

“By comparison to whom?” Sansa wants to know. The Tarlys snigger openly; at this point Jon has accepted the fact that he’s not getting out of the pub tonight with his dignity intact. But if he’s leaving with Sansa regardless, well… He’ll take whatever barbs to his pride he must.

“Sansa, this is Sam’s brother Dickon. Don’t look at him, though,” Jon says in quick succession. He covers her eyes and starts leading her away to the tune of the brothers’ laughter. “Let’s find someone less attractive for you to meet, hm, darling? Come on, now—”

Sansa ducks out from his hold, only to spin in his arms. She tugs at his cardigan and grins. “‘Darling’?”

“Yeah.” He grins back, and trails his hands across her lower back, nudging her closer. “That alright?”

She presses her lips together to keep her grin from going full-watt, but Jon’s having none of that. He thumbs at her bottom lip to coax the whole smile from her, making her laugh and tell him, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s alright.”

It feels, Sansa thinks, almost like her old life—only better; more comfortable, secure. And when Jon finally, mercifully takes her lips with his own before they can be interrupted again, it feels to Sansa like there might be a future beyond whatever happens tonight.

Jon’s lips are chapped and his breath tastes like the beer he’s been drinking. Sansa’s never been particularly keen on beer, preferring ciders and fruity cocktails to anything with hops, but the taste of Guinness on Jon’s tongue is better than any lemon drop she’s ever had. Her fingers twist in the fabric of his sweater, and his in the lush loose curls of her hair, and she really, _really_ —

“You wanna get out of here?” Jon mumbles into her mouth, taking the words right out of it, and he kisses her harder when she tells him _yes_.

* * *

It’s another half an hour ‘til they pull into Sansa’s driveway, but the time had passed in a blur—the goodbyes, the hugs, the knowing looks made all the more knowing when Tormund had put Marvin Gaye on the jukebox as Jon and Sansa donned their coats. Not that either of them had minded at that point; Sansa had simply shrugged, and Jon smirked and said, “Yeah, sounds about right,” much to the delight of their friends.

Now, though, in the quiet of the car and the muted light of the streetlamps at the end of the drive, Sansa’s breath isn’t coming so easily. Her hand covers the one Jon’s had on her knee throughout the trip and the nerves escape her in a rush.

“Can I ask you something?” she says, her voice loud in the silence when Jon cuts the car’s engine.

“Hm?” He smiles gently as his fingers move to caress the soft skin of her inner thigh. “You can ask me anything.”

Sansa mulls the words over for a moment, and Jon is content to wait. She’s not entirely sure what it is she wants to say, only that she wants to be sure that Jon wants her the way she does him. He’s never given her a reason to suppose otherwise—indeed, he’s done everything to make sure that she knows she’s _precisely_ what he wants—but…

Well, Sansa’s been wrong before. By now it’s a dull ache, all that hurt she’s endured in the past, and she couldn’t bear for the wound to open again. She knows better now, she’s learned from her mistakes, and that’s the last thing she wants Jon to be—a mistake, a miscalculation, a lapse in judgment that would break her heart in two, and she doesn’t know that she’d even want to put it back together afterwards. What would be the _point_?

Jon’s free hand touches her face. “Sansa? Where’s your head at, love?”

“What if this was the first night we met?” she says in something of a rush, not sure if this is what she wants to know but knowing it’s the best she’s going to get. “When I used to be someone who wasn’t just Rickon’s sister? Would you still want me?”

His eyes search her face, his thumb sweeps her cheek, and his other hand massages her bare thigh; it all sparks what Sansa thought to be a long-dead fire within her, and she begs any god who might be listening that Jon can be what she needs to get it back for good.

Jon takes a breath, then exhales it in a shaky sort of laugh. _There’s not a universe in which I wouldn’t want you._

“I think I could have met you anywhere, Sansa,” he admits. “If I’d met you at the pub tonight, I would’ve lost my mind. I probably would have said something stupid to the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. God, Sansa—” he exhales again, more sharply now, and leans his forehead against hers— “when you walked in tonight, I nearly had to pick my jaw up from the floor. And if tonight had been the first time we met, if I had no idea what to expect when that door opened… yeah, I would’ve lost my mind for sure.”

Jon chuckles; the sound is strained, but nonetheless genuine for it. “I would’ve stared at you like an idiot, bought you a drink, tried to get your number—or your attention, at least. I would have wanted you, Sansa, no matter what,” he says so earnestly that there’s no room for doubt, just as he had intended from the start. He cups her chin. “You’re not just Rickon’s sister, not just one of my student’s guardians. Not to me.”

He kisses her then, and Sansa is glad of it. Her breath rushes into his mouth in one long, relieved sigh that turns seamlessly to a moan when he strokes her tongue with his, when his hand moves to the back of her neck and the other slides underneath her dress. She’s so soft and warm and Jon can’t _believe_ that she wants him, but he’s not going to question a good thing— _the best thing_ that’s ever happened to him.

In a frenzy of sloppy kisses and fumbling hands, they manage to make it out of the car, up the drive, and stumble into the house with more than a few crashes and stepping on toes. But there is no one around to hear them—their loud laughter, or the way Jon groans when Sansa rakes her fingers through his hair, or the clatter of their shoes as they’re kicked off on their way down the hall to her bedroom.

The door knocks against the wall, sure to leave more than an insignificant nick in the paint, but Jon’s grip is biting into Sansa’s waist and he’s kissing behind her ear and she can’t care about anything else. His beard is rough on her skin, scraping against her neck as he nuzzles into it; the sensation makes her ache.

Sansa presses her body flush with his, and Jon returns the motion eagerly, hips flexing against hers, thrusting, pushing her against the now-slightly-damaged wall.

“You have—” Jon sucks on her throat, his breath coming sharp as knives against her pulse— “ _no idea_ how long I’ve wanted this, Sansa, how long I’ve wanted to be alone with you, how much I want to make you feel good, make you forget anything that isn’t me and you…”

She grips his hair and drags his mouth to hers, whining into it when his hips lock hers in place against the wall and rotate slowly, tortuously, deliciously. “Make me forget. _Everything._ I only want to think about you.”

Jon is all too happy to oblige.

He drags kisses over her chin, down her neck, across her collarbone. His hands move up the front of her dress to her chest, then back down as he falls to his knees, grins up at her, and then ducks his head under her skirt. He can feel how hot she is for him, and how wet—he opens his mouth against the front of her panties and hears her catch her breath, feels her muscles contract and her fingers flex in his hair.

“Just me and you,” he mumbles into the apex of her thighs, and then he tears her panties aside and tastes her for the first time.

He wants to take it slow, to savour this, _her_ , but they’ve got all weekend and Jon wants to make her come as many times as he can get her to in the next forty-eight-or-so hours. Sansa’s not complaining, anyway, when he takes her hips and guides them to the pace he’s set with his tongue, so Jon doesn’t see any need to stop. He has her coming apart sooner than he’s ready to take his mouth off her, but he surely won’t let this be the last time if Sansa’s willing to let his head between her legs again.

Because _fuck him_ , she feels so good when she comes on his tongue.

She’s shimmying out of her dress as soon as Jon gets to his feet. She pauses the struggle with her stuck zipper to kiss him, harsh and fast and deep, and Jon tugs her zipper so ruthlessly that the seams split in her dress.

“Shit,” he rasps as Sansa’s lips move to his neck and she’s pushing his cardigan from his shoulders. “Shit, Sansa, I just fucked up your dress, didn’t I?”

“I don’t care,” she assures him, fingers working furiously at his button-down. He shrugs out of it as she moves to his trousers. “I’ve got about thirty dresses, Jon, and only one of you.”

“God, I like the sound of that.” Jon cups her face and kisses her again; he thinks he might never get enough of her kisses, sweet and languid one moment, hot and demanding the next. And he’ll give her absolutely _anything_ she wants.

They trip their way to the bed, Sansa falling onto the mattress and Jon falling onto her. She makes a soft _oomph!_  sound when he lands atop her, but the momentary pain quickly recedes with the feel of his bare skin on hers. So much better, hotter, and so _real_ that she couldn’t possibly be imagining it this time.

“Condoms?” Jon asks breathlessly as he continues to lavish her with kisses everywhere he can reach—her cheek, the slope of her shoulders, her tits, her stomach, and back towards her mouth again.

“Bedside table,” Sansa assures him as she keeps working at his neck. She’s sure to leave a few bruises (and sure to have several of her own), so she suspects she’ll have to teach Jon a makeup trick or two before he goes back to work on Monday. Something tells her that he won’t mind—that _something_ being the long, guttural groans that escape him whenever she sucks hard on his skin, and the way he says—

“Don’t stop,” he pants as he sucks his own mark behind her ear. His hand fumbles for the box of condoms Margaery had dropped onto Sansa’s nightstand before they left earlier. “ _Don’t_ stop, Sansa, love, your mouth feels so goddamn good—”

Jon catches a foil packet between his fingers and rips it open with such haste that Sansa can’t help but laugh. He grins down at her, breathless, pupils blown wide and cheeks flushed with want and pure giddiness that he gets to have her.

“You ready?” he asks, voice a rough scratch as his hand slips between them to test her, to excite her, to just simply _feel_ her.

“Mhmmm.” Sansa nods vigorously. She snatches the condom with one hand while the other strokes him. He’s been ready since their fevered make-out session in the car, but he’s not going to stop her from touching him. “Yeah, sweetheart, I’m ready.”

As she rolls the condom over him, Jon’s fingers map her dips and curves, marveling at the softness of her skin, the firmness of the muscles beneath, the way she tenses and then relaxes with every brush of his fingertips. Her heartbeat thunders to match his own, and Jon just can’t seem to stop kissing her. He holds her chin as he does so, as he eases inside of her and she whimpers, long and high, into his mouth as he groans, long and low, into hers.

“You feel—” Jon chokes out, plucking kisses from her lips and dropping more along the curve of her cheekbones— “ _fucking_ exquisite, Sansa—”

She says nothing in return, too intent on the feel of Jon’s skin, of him inside of her, the way her heart thrums and skips and jumps into her throat. She gasps with every thrust, her hips rising to meet the insistence of his, and she can’t seem to stop kissing him, either.

“So good,” Sansa sighs at length, her voice a husky thrill that shoots down Jon’s spine and makes him love her harder, faster. “You feel _so_ good, Jon—”

“That’s right, sweetheart,” he near-on growls from where his head is buried in the valley of her breasts. His tongue licks a stripe between them, then his mouth latches onto the swell of one and his hand takes the other. “So good, Sansa, I wanna make you feel so good…”

And oh, but he _does_.

This time, when Sansa comes, Jon can see the look on her face—the way her eyes shut tight, then open, blinking rapidly; the pink that blooms and stains every inch of her naked skin beneath him; and the soft _oh_ of her mouth before it kicks up into a wide, blissful smile from which his name spills forth, again and again and _again_ —

Jon wonders how many times he’ll get to see that look, to hear Sansa say his name like that again and again and _again_ , and he resolves not to put a cap on it; he’d rather try to break his own record with Sansa, as many times as she’ll let him try.


End file.
